diversity and tolerance

[aliantha]

It seems that you tacitly promise that this change will be the only one - that it won't expand further. I don't believe that for a minute.

Good for you, then, because I never said that. Nor did I think it. And I'm pretty sure I didn't imply it, either.

I think I've been pretty consistent in saying that *any* committed relationship can only strengthen the family. That includes not just a man and a woman promising to love one another and their offspring...but also a grandmother promising to love and raise her grandchildren in place of an absent parent, a middle-aged couple promising to look after a Down Syndrome sibling on the death of their parents, a group of 20-something siblings renting a house together, and, yes, two men or two women vowing to love one another 'til death they do part.

These are *all* families, rus. *All* of them. All founded on love and promises.

I think that's a beautiful thing.

[rusmeister]

rus, the irony is that it is not the government who is trying to keep homosexuals from enjoying the freedom and equality that heterosexuals have. It is you. While saying those of your values are the only weapon against taking away freedom and equality, you are pushing to take away freedom and equality.

This is something where all we can hope to do is understand each other's position. I see no freedom to require me to acknowledge that fire is water, 2+2 is 5, or that people of the same sex can "be married", and therefore it is not an issue of equality to begin with. Once you understand that we don't see it as an issue of "equal rights", that it is not at all the same as race issues, to which it is wrongly compared all the time, you'll at least not think that we are somehow simply 'not seeing' an infringement of equality.

The sum is, I plead innocent to the claim of "homophobia", 'guilty' to "intolerance", and insist that the intolerance is the virtue, and your tolerance the vice.

Well, at least you're owning up to it!

But to expand on it a little... Heh. As far as your religion goes, there is not the slightest reason to demand, or even expect, the OC to bend even slightly. It is a matter of faith and belief. Men cannot marry men; women cannot marry women. End of story.

In the United States, where freedom and equality are supposed to be the founding principles and the rule of the day, there is nothing remotely wrong with any two consenting adults entering into a union that is legally identical in all ways to any union that any other two consenting adults can enter into.

This last is a matter of faith and belief on your part. Men can marry men; women can marry women. End of story. And that's the problem. Your thought stops right there. No inquiry as to what exactly marriage is; just an assumption that it is a union of two loving people. If that were the case, I would not hold the position I do.
But marriage was never anything but the union of a man and a woman, generally always by ceremony to solemnize it/confer recognition of the bond by society and for life. Now is the only time (spare me the stories of a very few historical cases where men would be united in some kind of bond - it was never recognized as marriage) when there is a massive effort to change that. therefore, it is you that are defying all of human history, and common sense, and not we. It is only when common sense is lost that this even becomes possible.

A society cannot defend/strengthen/support/ensure freedom and equality by denying freedom or equality to any group. Or even any individual. It is a contradiction. It is not a paradox that actually does make sense. It's a contradiction. You cannot defend it by denying it. You cannot claim to have it if all do not have it; if all are not allowed to have it.

I'm feeling like Kirk talking to Cloud William.

"These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!"

"The Kohms?!"

"They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing!"

But yes, I understand that, because of our different worldviews, we are working toward different goals.

I quite agree on the idea of equality being universal. Only this is not a matter of equality. Equality does not mean "anybody can say anything they want, and socially enforce it on others". Nor does the idea of rights mean that all people can and must be equal in all things. As I do not have a "right" to give birth to a child by fact of biology, there is no question of equality there. I am older, fatter, and slower on the uptake than some (kind of like Barliman Butterbur), and sometimes wish I weren't. There is no question of equality there. There are a great many things that the concept of "equality" does not apply to. The idea of two people of the same sex being married is one of them.
The main thing I object to, in any event, is the enforcement of recognition by society on what these people want to do. I deny that they have any right to require anyone to "recognize" that they are "married" based on the same reason.

I can picture a headline: "Men breastfeeding now the law!"
You may attain a right "to do something". But that does not mean that you will be right in doing it.
(Yes, I know you could try to turn that around on me. But that's only because we disagree on what is right. Applied to what is the case by the laws of nature we so worship until they conflict with our desires, though, it is clear that attempting to equalize the sexes - to make them identical - is neither right nor desirable.
Vive la difference! is a passionate declaration of admiration, not a call to suppress and dominate. It's not a political powerplay. It is a necessity of our existence. When you go messing with that, it's as I said.

[rusmeister]

It seems that you tacitly promise that this change will be the only one - that it won't expand further. I don't believe that for a minute.

Good for you, then, because I never said that. Nor did I think it. And I'm pretty sure I didn't imply it, either.

I think I've been pretty consistent in saying that *any* committed relationship can only strengthen the family. That includes not just a man and a woman promising to love one another and their offspring...but also a grandmother promising to love and raise her grandchildren in place of an absent parent, a middle-aged couple promising to look after a Down Syndrome sibling on the death of their parents, a group of 20-something siblings renting a house together, and, yes, two men or two women vowing to love one another 'til death they do part.

These are *all* families, rus. *All* of them. All founded on love and promises.

I think that's a beautiful thing.

I didn't think you were implying a promise to not expand the definition. I certainly don't think you were thinking of it. I'm saying that it is implicit in the proposal and its proponents do not realize this (as you basically admitted).

I agree with all cases but the last. All cases but the last ARE founded on that traditional (and heretofore ONLY) family. When they are, agreed, it is a good and even beautiful thing. But I don't think a man declaring his marriage to his pet dog to be either a family, or a beautiful thing, just because he imagines it to be so.
Please understand, I am not at all attempting to be insulting. But that IS the direction this leads to. It is not at that point NOW - at the moment we have not yet surrendered the idea of it being two consenting human adults - only that if we surrender one aspect that was always part of the definition, why could it not be possible to then (later) surrender others? Any science fiction author can imagine it and write a convincing story where it becomes real. Why can't you? (There was a film this summer, Splice, that suggested the idea of a semi-human and sex with that - didn't see it, but the idea is enough for me.)

Is it not true that a definition, once expanded, may be expanded again? (Certainly legal history insists on the idea of precedent.)

(Plus, I see a difference between promises and genuine vows (as they used to be understood.)
One of GK's outstanding essays on the vow - if more people read this, there might be fewer divorces...
Audio:
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/a_de ... h_vows.mp3
Text:
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/rash_vows.html
(It's short and fun - give it a whirl! Note that the second half relates the idea to marriage.)

[Avatar]

My counter point on whether gay marriage could be good for the family would be that you are proposing a major change to a definition which has stood for millenia...

Family:
c.1400, "servants of a household," from L. familia "household," including relatives and servants, from famulus "servant," of unknown origin. The classical L. sense recorded in Eng. from 1545; the main modern sense of "those connected by blood" (whether living together or not) is first attested 1667. Replaced O.E. hiwscipe. Buzzword family values first recorded 1966. Phrase in a family way "pregnant" is from 1796. Family circle is 1809; family man, one devoted to wife and children, is 1856 (earlier it meant "thief," 1788, from family in slang sense of "the fraternity of thieves").

Scarcely millenia Rus.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

Indeed, rus, marriage is a union of two loving people. Or it should be. The fact that it has been defined in a more limited way throughout history is not evidence that it should be defined in that limited way.

Society should allow every human being to do everything s/he can do, as long as it causes no harm to the individual, and does not make it impossible for society to exist.

Gay marriage does not harm the individual, and it does not make it impossible for society to exist. Those who oppose it do so for one or both of two reasons. First, because some have strong feelings against homosexuality. Fear that homosexuals are child molesters. Fear that homosexuals spread diseases more than heterosexuals. Fear that others will think they are homosexual. Revulsion at the thought of one or more sex acts that homosexuals might be engaging in. Second, because of religious belief. God says it's wrong. Both are unverifiable opinions, at best, and irrational nonsense, at worst.

The fact that you - the most outspoken opponent of gay marriage who claims that it should not be allowed for rational, logical reasons - cannot explain why, and cannot find anyone else who has written about why, is very telling. We are left to believe there's no rational or logical argument to support your position. What else does one assume about any position if there is no evidence to support that position?

Yes, it is entirely possible that Chesterton spoke about things that encompass this issue, even if he never spoke about it. That kind of thing happens all the time. It's fine to build on other ideas. But, as I've said many times, I can seldom understand what he's saying. Call me an idiot. Call me uneducated. It doesn't matter. I can't read him. I've read other books by people of great faith who were expressing their beliefs, and absolutely loved the books. Neale Donald Walsch, Fools Crow, and Eknath Easwaran, for example. I find them to be logical, and I like their writing style. I think their worldviews are beautiful, and contain much wisdom. I just don't see evidence to support their assertions. Chesterton is another matter. I can't understand him. He may as well be putting random words together. For you to say, "Well, this is truth. And the only way to understand this truth is to read him, then extrapolate..." Come on, rus. That's ridiculous. That's not any sort of tool or method of debate. It's not a way of exchanging ideas. If you understand it, start explaining it. If you don't understand it, but simply embrace it because it agrees with your belief that God says not to do it, then admit that.

And you spare me something like this:

As to my "refusing" to explain my position...
The things that are the most obvious (especially the ones that are true) are the most difficult to explain to those to whom it is not obvious. Explaining color to a blind man, or love to a computer. I was unable to see these things as recently as eight years ago.

That's special revelation. If I accept an overall set of beliefs for which there is no evidence, or rational/logical support, I will understand this particular belief, for which there is no evidence, or rational/logical support?!?


As for R. V. Young... Is there any need to go beyond the first two paragraphs???

For thousands of years, until the late 1800s, our ancestors were completely oblivious to the existence of a fundamentally distinct class of human beings. Indeed, during the long period of Greco-Roman antiquity and more than a millennium and a half of Christian civilization, man did not even have a name for this class.

Or so asserts an almost universal assumption fixed in the language almost everyone uses: that “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals” are two permanently and innately different kinds of human being, and that “sexual orientation” constitutes a difference comparable to the difference between male and female. Widespread acceptance of “homosexuality” and associated terms thus biases discussion of the subject before an argument is even formulated.

Where did he get this stuff?? Who in the world says the difference between hetero- and homosexual is comparable to the difference between male and female??

And homosexuals aren't a fundamentally distinct class of human beings. And there's no need to consider them as such. They are only considered to be such because folks like you want to categorize them, and deny them certain things. If they were simply allowed to be free and equal, they'd simply get married, and we'd simply call them "Ed and Bob" or "Janice and Betty". People of your beliefs, and homophobes, made this happen, and Young is saying it's the fault of the homosexuals and/or people of my beliefs. If this is the type of thinking he is doing, if the rest of this is him going about showing the fallacies of these things - fallacies to invalidate fallacies that were created because of guys like him and you - there's no need to continue reading. Have you got anybody else?

[rusmeister]

Indeed, rus, marriage is a union of two loving people. Or it should be. The fact that it has been defined in a more limited way throughout history is not evidence that it should be defined in that limited way.

Society should allow every human being to do everything s/he can do, as long as it causes no harm to the individual, and does not make it impossible for society to exist.

Gay marriage does not harm the individual, and it does not make it impossible for society to exist. Those who oppose it do so for one or both of two reasons. First, because some have strong feelings against homosexuality. Fear that homosexuals are child molesters. Fear that homosexuals spread diseases more than heterosexuals. Fear that others will think they are homosexual. Revulsion at the thought of one or more sex acts that homosexuals might be engaging in. Second, because of religious belief. God says it's wrong. Both are unverifiable opinions, at best, and irrational nonsense, at worst.

The fact that you - the most outspoken opponent of gay marriage who claims that it should not be allowed for rational, logical reasons - cannot explain why, and cannot find anyone else who has written about why, is very telling. We are left to believe there's no rational or logical argument to support your position. What else does one assume about any position if there is no evidence to support that position?

Yes, it is entirely possible that Chesterton spoke about things that encompass this issue, even if he never spoke about it. That kind of thing happens all the time. It's fine to build on other ideas. But, as I've said many times, I can seldom understand what he's saying. Call me an idiot. Call me uneducated. It doesn't matter. I can't read him. I've read other books by people of great faith who were expressing their beliefs, and absolutely loved the books. Neale Donald Walsch, Fools Crow, and Eknath Easwaran, for example. I find them to be logical, and I like their writing style. I think their worldviews are beautiful, and contain much wisdom. I just don't see evidence to support their assertions. Chesterton is another matter. I can't understand him. He may as well be putting random words together. For you to say, "Well, this is truth. And the only way to understand this truth is to read him, then extrapolate..." Come on, rus. That's ridiculous. That's not any sort of tool or method of debate. It's not a way of exchanging ideas. If you understand it, start explaining it. If you don't understand it, but simply embrace it because it agrees with your belief that God says not to do it, then admit that.

And you spare me something like this:

As to my "refusing" to explain my position...
The things that are the most obvious (especially the ones that are true) are the most difficult to explain to those to whom it is not obvious. Explaining color to a blind man, or love to a computer. I was unable to see these things as recently as eight years ago.

That's special revelation. If I accept an overall set of beliefs for which there is no evidence, or rational/logical support, I will understand this particular belief, for which there is no evidence, or rational/logical support?!?


As for R. V. Young... Is there any need to go beyond the first two paragraphs???

For thousands of years, until the late 1800s, our ancestors were completely oblivious to the existence of a fundamentally distinct class of human beings. Indeed, during the long period of Greco-Roman antiquity and more than a millennium and a half of Christian civilization, man did not even have a name for this class.

Or so asserts an almost universal assumption fixed in the language almost everyone uses: that “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals” are two permanently and innately different kinds of human being, and that “sexual orientation” constitutes a difference comparable to the difference between male and female. Widespread acceptance of “homosexuality” and associated terms thus biases discussion of the subject before an argument is even formulated.

Where did he get this stuff?? Who in the world says the difference between hetero- and homosexual is comparable to the difference between male and female??

And homosexuals aren't a fundamentally distinct class of human beings. And there's no need to consider them as such. They are only considered to be such because folks like you want to categorize them, and deny them certain things. If they were simply allowed to be free and equal, they'd simply get married, and we'd simply call them "Ed and Bob" or "Janice and Betty". People of your beliefs, and homophobes, made this happen, and Young is saying it's the fault of the homosexuals and/or people of my beliefs. If this is the type of thinking he is doing, if the rest of this is him going about showing the fallacies of these things - fallacies to invalidate fallacies that were created because of guys like him and you - there's no need to continue reading. Have you got anybody else?

OK. You like talking about small steps. Here we go:
You admit that the definition HAS been narrower than what is being now proposed. You admit that you are proposing actually changing the definition.
You think things SHOULD be this way, but you can't actually predict what will happen - you can only speculate on what you think will happen.
A person sticking to the traditional concept, OTOH, has a solid basis for predicting stability in that social unit if it is not tampered with/changed.

On your response to Young, you stagger me. Gay supporters (condescending to use your language) insist that there are such classes of people, and that their desires are just as normal (in the sense of proper and right) as so-called "heterosexuals. By their own insistence they use these terms. This is a distinction between groups of people; a classification.
And you totally turn what I see upside down. THEY insist on those terms, and demand that we recognize that they be married. Of COURSE we deny it, just as I ignore the claim of a right of a man to get pregnant.
They assume that their desires are normal (in the sense I described) and that everything that I have described as sacred is not so. There's no fallacy in Young. I see a contradiction in your view, when one minute, you want me to treat them as they wish, as a separate class of people with equal rights, then the next minute denying that they are a separate class of people.

You're right. There's no need to talk, no need to understand us. All that's left is force. I'll fight, wherever my faith lets me, and I'll insist on the truth being upheld if I win, and go underground if I lose. there's really not much else to say. The end of all debates.

[Seven Words]

I'm late to this one...Rus, your definition of "normal" excludes gay behavior (for want of a better term). Your definition of normal is based on your understanding of the Bible & the doctrines of the Orthodox Church (as I understand from what you have said elsewhere). But I believe most people on here would define normal as something along the lines of "functioning/acting as built/made to. And with THAT definition, gays are indeed acting normally, for the most part. PET and MRI studies have documented that in gay males, certain areas of the brain relating to sex are actually physically DIFFERENT than straight male, in fact they are congruent with those structures in straight female brains. And same with gay women brains resembling straight men. In which case, their brains are functioning as built. Normally, in other words. There are some gays, of both genders, whose orientation is a result of sexual abuse. Some of them eventually recover from the abuse and become heterosexual later in life. Some remain gay. But the majority of gays are, indeed "born that way"

Now, if you feel that your scientifically unsupported theological beliefs trump scientific evidence, that's certainly your right. But I can't understand why you would expect anyone who does not already agree with you to elect to ignore the evidence.

[rusmeister]

I'm late to this one...Rus, your definition of "normal" excludes gay behavior (for want of a better term). Your definition of normal is based on your understanding of the Bible & the doctrines of the Orthodox Church (as I understand from what you have said elsewhere). But I believe most people on here would define normal as something along the lines of "functioning/acting as built/made to. And with THAT definition, gays are indeed acting normally, for the most part. PET and MRI studies have documented that in gay males, certain areas of the brain relating to sex are actually physically DIFFERENT than straight male, in fact they are congruent with those structures in straight female brains. And same with gay women brains resembling straight men. In which case, their brains are functioning as built. Normally, in other words. There are some gays, of both genders, whose orientation is a result of sexual abuse. Some of them eventually recover from the abuse and become heterosexual later in life. Some remain gay. But the majority of gays are, indeed "born that way"

Now, if you feel that your scientifically unsupported theological beliefs trump scientific evidence, that's certainly your right. But I can't understand why you would expect anyone who does not already agree with you to elect to ignore the evidence.

Addressed really to everybody; not picking on 7W in particular:

As I said, I feel this is really winding down to unanswerable and opposing dogmas. You have yours, as I have mine.

But any biologist will tell you, and anyone with an old-fashioned sense called "common sense" will tell you that

"functioning/acting as built/made to

, which by the way implies a Builder/Creator, indicates that homosexual acts are decidedly NOT "functioning/acting as built/made to". They are acting on desires that are CONTRARY to their design function. They feel these sexual desires and want to gratify them (and of course want to feel emotional love, etc), and are prepared to gratify them IN SPITE OF design. If that's not obvious, then everything I say is Chinese to you, and there is, again, no point in talking.

I'm really finished discussing this, because I see a difference between us. I AM capable of really putting myself into your shoes and really considering your arguments and ideas from the inside. I WAS on that side until 2003. I see no similar reciprocation. It is NOT only religion on my side. It is practically the whole of human tradition, and your modern position is a HUGE exception to that, and it is FAR more than just "some form of bigotry". I think, that in disagreeing with you, I am far more fair to your ideas than you are to mine.

Not even any point in responding to Avatar's idea that the family appeared with the advent of the English language, as if the ancient households weren't built rather specifically around the union of a man and a woman and the offspring that resulted. Just no point at all.

[Vraith]

There's a lot to be argued about in many of the posts, but you're done Rus, so all I say about the last is that, by strict definition only your arguments are consistently dogmatic. Rationality/tradition and Truth/tradition have only a passing acquaintance with each other, your version of family/tradition are at least kissing cousins, but still not the monumental foundation of everything you propose. Your version of things, applied in whole, allows only diversity in the irrelevant and tolerance of the insignificant.

[Fist and Faith]

OK. You like talking about small steps. Here we go:
You admit that the definition HAS been narrower than what is being now proposed. You admit that you are proposing actually changing the definition.
You think things SHOULD be this way, but you can't actually predict what will happen - you can only speculate on what you think will happen.
A person sticking to the traditional concept, OTOH, has a solid basis for predicting stability in that social unit if it is not tampered with/changed.

Ah! This is good! Really. Yes, I absolutely agree with everything you say. Yes, marriage usually has been defined as "between a man and a woman." Sometimes that hadn't been mentioned, but it was assumed that that's who was being discussed. It's likely that homosexuals didn't try to get a legally recognized marriage. God said to kill them, after all, so why would they admit to being homosexuals, must less demand equal rights.

But then America saw blacks and women being given the rights that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution guarantee to all. We see that these folks are no longer allowed to be beaten for things like expressing an opinion; a black man talking to a white woman; etc. If those things can change, it's easy to imagine a homosexual couple thinking maybe they can start to demand equality without being stoned to death.

So now, the definition can mean any two consenting adults - simply because two consenting adults who are not one man and one woman are, for the first time, asking it to. No, there's no need to think of them as a separate class of people. Just think of this man and woman as a couple that wants to get married, those two women as a couple that wants to get married, and those two men as a couple that wants to get married.

As for what will happen, no, I don't make any claim to know. However, the result will be better than what we have. Turmoil and riots that lead to freedom and equality for all people is better than denying freedom and equality to some people. Same as the American Revolution. Lots of people were willing to suffer horrors in order to have their children live in a better world.

And anyway, you can't say what will happen if things go the way you want. What area on the planet has been the bastion of true Christianity for centuries? I'm thinking your answer is Russia. That's where the Orthodox Church has been. Constantine took true Christianity to Greece, and it went from there to Russia. And, while all other forms of Christianity degenerated, to one degree or another, the OC stayed true and pure. Yes? That's where the undistilled truth has been. The word of God, the knowledge that the traditional family is the only way things should be, and all the other laws of God. And a hundred years ago, it all failed to stop the state from murdering 20,000,000 people. No, I can't say what would happen if all people had freedom and equality, but I don't think it would be worse than that. How can you claim that your beliefs about God and about the traditional family's role are the only thing that can stand up to the state? Your beliefs can't prevent things from falling apart. Not even in the land where they were truly understood. Those who wanted power, who wanted to murder on a scale more vast and horrifying than anything before or since, were able to ignore the weapons of the many traditional families that opposed them. They laughed at, and murdered, the one and only thing that you claim has the power to stop them. It does not have that power. So let's not worry about making sure it survives, without any other types of marriages and families, at the cost of freedom and equality.

Edit: I forgot about this part.

You're right. There's no need to talk, no need to understand us. All that's left is force. I'll fight, wherever my faith lets me, and I'll insist on the truth being upheld if I win, and go underground if I lose. there's really not much else to say. The end of all debates.

Not sure what you're talking about. If homosexuals are allowed to legally marry, you'll start using force? Or maybe you'll start using force before the legal right is granted? Either way, you will, literally, force your beliefs on others?

[Orlion]

You know, I've decided to test your assertation about biologists and have questioned bona fide biologists (which are plentiful on a college campus). None of them seem to say what you say they say. None of them say that life is proof of a designer, or anything else. To tell you the truth, the only people I've talked to that say this are not bona fide biologists at all... they're people who dabble in certain areas of science looking for proof to a conclusion that they've all ready accepted. That's a logical fallacy and is in no way a search for any sort of objective truth.

Also, let's not forget Richard Dawkins is a bona fide biologist, and he obviously seems to disagree on many of your points (I'm not going to say all, I don't know his position on things like, say, abortion).

That being said, it doesn't matter. You're able to draw your own conclusions, and I'm able to draw mine exactly because of the principle of tolerance (the one you seem to oppose) that I expounded on earlier. You were tolerated to develope your views as I was tolerated to develope my views. Those of dissenting opinion may have tried to persuade us, but they haven't used (or at least succeeded) in using force to make us accept 'X'. Without that principle, your worldview may very well not have existed.

[rusmeister]

Your arguments are equally dogmatic.
I've tried to tell you that dogma does not require religion as such.

Whatever one's first principles are ARE their dogmas. The things they won't give on no matter what competing reason, evidence, or ideas are offered.

The rest is just argument over different first principles (so I'm not going to argue about what you think irrelevant and insignificant). I've tried to communicate that alternate view to you, having been on both sides of the fence of belief and unbelief, tolerance of any and all "lifestyles" and not, etc.

What I don't get here is an effort to really comprehend the other side. I get assumptions that 'it is because God said so' which has an element of truth, but is not understanding of the position. Honestly, how many of you ever held views like mine and studied things like the history and (varying) theologies of Christianity (I wouldn't expect you to have discovered Orthodoxy) as adults?
So I feel that I have seen both sides of the issue, but that despite my best efforts, you have only seen one - you have understood little to nothing from anything I have said. That makes my time spent here in vain. And to understand means not merely to interpret in the light of your own beliefs, but to have interpreted in the light of the beliefs of what you oppose.

And you (except for Ali) won't do that. You tell me on one hand to offer other defenders of what I believe, then you tell me that you won't read them (or will only read a paragraph or so) if I do. (Under the polite formula "You 'prefer' that I tell things to you in my own words'. Well, I have, and I'm done.

If I see honest attempts at really trying to get on the inside of understanding (beyond isolated questions followed immediately by rebuttals without consideration of the complete position), I suppose I will still try to explain, but explanation is all I'm willing to do now.

I was argued out of your positions and find immense rationality within what I now believe, while being aware of all that is rational in what I no longer believe. (Like I said, it was CS Lewis that freed my mind.) I see that you have an enormous web of rationality, based on blind faith - meaning you do not even know that it is faith. You do NOT see the enormous web of rationality that I am sitting on with a faith that is aware of what it is.

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

It is also an act of faith to assert that reason is the only path to truth, as some here (though not all) do.

[rusmeister]

OK. You like talking about small steps. Here we go:
You admit that the definition HAS been narrower than what is being now proposed. You admit that you are proposing actually changing the definition.
You think things SHOULD be this way, but you can't actually predict what will happen - you can only speculate on what you think will happen.
A person sticking to the traditional concept, OTOH, has a solid basis for predicting stability in that social unit if it is not tampered with/changed.

Ah! This is good! Really. Yes, I absolutely agree with everything you say. Yes, marriage usually has been defined as "between a man and a woman." Sometimes that hadn't been mentioned, but it was assumed that that's who was being discussed. It's likely that homosexuals didn't try to get a legally recognized marriage. God said to kill them, after all, so why would they admit to being homosexuals, must less demand equal rights.

But then America saw blacks and women being given the rights that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution guarantee to all. We see that these folks are no longer allowed to be beaten for things like expressing an opinion; a black man talking to a white woman; etc. If those things can change, it's easy to imagine a homosexual couple thinking maybe they can start to demand equality without being stoned to death.

So now, the definition can mean any two consenting adults - simply because two consenting adults who are not one man and one woman are, for the first time, asking it to. No, there's no need to think of them as a separate class of people. Just think of this man and woman as a couple that wants to get married, those two women as a couple that wants to get married, and those two men as a couple that wants to get married.

As for what will happen, no, I don't make any claim to know. However, the result will be better than what we have. Turmoil and riots that lead to freedom and equality for all people is better than denying freedom and equality to some people. Same as the American Revolution. Lots of people were willing to suffer horrors in order to have their children live in a better world.

And anyway, you can't say what will happen if things go the way you want. What area on the planet has been the bastion of true Christianity for centuries? I'm thinking your answer is Russia. That's where the Orthodox Church has been. Constantine took true Christianity to Greece, and it went from there to Russia. And, while all other forms of Christianity degenerated, to one degree or another, the OC stayed true and pure. Yes? That's where the undistilled truth has been. The word of God, the knowledge that the traditional family is the only way things should be, and all the other laws of God. And a hundred years ago, it all failed to stop the state from murdering 20,000,000 people. No, I can't say what would happen if all people had freedom and equality, but I don't think it would be worse than that. How can you claim that your beliefs about God and about the traditional family's role are the only thing that can stand up to the state? Your beliefs can't prevent things from falling apart. Not even in the land where they were truly understood. Those who wanted power, who wanted to murder on a scale more vast and horrifying than anything before or since, were able to ignore the weapons of the many traditional families that opposed them. They laughed at, and murdered, the one and only thing that you claim has the power to stop them. It does not have that power. So let's not worry about making sure it survives, without any other types of marriages and families, at the cost of freedom and equality.

For most of what you said, your remarks do not take my POV into consideration, so I see no point in responding further. If you tried to take a look at things from inside my position, and said, OK, if thus, then so, you would see that the logic is iron and that your arguments couldn't touch it. You'd have to start somewhere else.

(But as this is an attempt to understand what I think:) No, I do not think that any geographical place has been a pure bastion of Christianity. Even the Russian Church had a period of fall into near-darkness. From the Old Believer schism to the Petrine meddling, a period that lead people to skepticism and unbelief, resulting in the Russian Revolution (which had the long-term unintended effect of completely erasing Peter's "reforms" and allowing the Church to be reborn as it had been). But the Church wasn't only Russia, even then. The other parts of the Church continued to exist, outside the Ottoman Empire, outside of even Russia (since you don't see that the Church is not merely an earthly institution). So in Russia you had over the 19th and 20th centuries the development of mass unbelief, briefly slowed down by the Optin elders en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staretsdom , which was what enabled the horrors you describe. I recommend to you the words of Solzhenitsyn, who y'all admired as a human rights activists until he began insisting on the relevance of religion:

If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible that main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.

It is unbelief that permits horrors, that acts without concern for consequences (TC in the beginning of LFB), that results in killing fields, gulags, death marches, etc and it is belief that offers a brake, a practical limit (speaking primarily of Judeo-Christian belief). The believer may do things you consider wrong and even evil, but it takes unbelievers to do the truly horrific evils, the out and out mass murder - Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. But I no longer even care to argue that. Solzhenitsyn was right, but it is something that unbelievers find intolerable to accept, because, if true, it would require one to change one's life to align it with what is true. And that can be quite uncomfortable.

Where belief predominates, people will stand up to such tyranny, either in war - even civil war - or martyrdom, because they know that some things are worse than death. Where it does not, people will cling to their lives as being the only one they have, and death being the end of the world (as far as they are concerned). The American Revolution is an example of a society where belief predominated (and even Jefferson had to leave in the idea of a Creator). Stalinist Russia is an example of where it did not.

Not sure what you're talking about. If homosexuals are allowed to legally marry, you'll start using force? Or maybe you'll start using force before the legal right is granted? Either way, you will, literally, force your beliefs on others?

What I mean is that if I have any power - if voting actually represented power (which I no longer believe), for example - I will do whatever I can to slow or stop the march of the ideology - the religion of pluralism - within the constraints of my faith - for belief acts as a restraint upon me as well.
If I were king, yes, you bet your booties I'd prevent public approval of such things.
If you take any action whatsoever - if you vote for the legalization ("legal" merely meaning "that of which the government happens to prove") of "gay marriage" and requiring that it legally be recognized, then you are enforcing your own beliefs. There is no such thing as not doing so, except by refusing to participate in public life, something I think I'm a lot closer to than you are. Whenever you insist on "freedoms, you are enforcing your beliefs. The North forced its belief that slavery was evil on the South, and that, at any rate, was a good thing. We enforce our beliefs on our children. You cannot paint it as unqualified evil. You simply call the same idea by a different name - when you approve of what is being enforced.

[Fist and Faith]

Oh, I quite agree about that last stuff. Don't remember if it's this thread or another, but I recently said the same thing. Seeing my attitude of tolerance in their early years can't help but imprint the same attitude on my children to some degree.

And, obviously, I'm thrilled with whatever degree of success I see. Not only because I believe this is the best way to live, but because, if everyone had the same attitude as me, the world would be a wonderfully peaceful, loving place.

If seemed you meant something else by "force," though. Why would you have to "go underground"?? If you lose the vote, you'll feel the need to not just stop trying to spread the Word of God, but to hide your beliefs? Your beliefs are much more welcome in my world than mine are in yours. Stick around! Express your beliefs all you want. I'd rather you did that than constantly tell the rest of us that our beliefs are wrong. I don't remember ever seeing you post about the aspects of God and your beliefs that fill you with joy. Things that people might be attracted to. Things that would make me smile for you, the way I smile for many people whose beliefs are far different than mine.

Still, if your beliefs do not rule the world, and mine do, the stuff you've been posting all along is still perfectly acceptable.

[rusmeister]

You know, I've decided to test your assertation about biologists and have questioned bona fide biologists (which are plentiful on a college campus). None of them seem to say what you say they say. None of them say that life is proof of a designer, or anything else. To tell you the truth, the only people I've talked to that say this are not bona fide biologists at all... they're people who dabble in certain areas of science looking for proof to a conclusion that they've all ready accepted. That's a logical fallacy and is in no way a search for any sort of objective truth.

Also, let's not forget Richard Dawkins is a bona fide biologist, and he obviously seems to disagree on many of your points (I'm not going to say all, I don't know his position on things like, say, abortion).

That being said, it doesn't matter. You're able to draw your own conclusions, and I'm able to draw mine exactly because of the principle of tolerance (the one you seem to oppose) that I expounded on earlier. You were tolerated to develope your views as I was tolerated to develope my views. Those of dissenting opinion may have tried to persuade us, but they haven't used (or at least succeeded) in using force to make us accept 'X'. Without that principle, your worldview may very well not have existed.

Well, when you start by expressing my thoughts incorrectly, it's not a surprise that you'll get a different result. I didn't say "proof of a designer" (even though I do also think that to be the case - it is proof according to the criteria that I accept). Check what I actually said.
I agree with what you say on fallacy - I just think that works for unbelievers as well as believers - in fact. more so.

If you speak of "the purpose" of a thing, then you may be trying to say "purpose with a meaning" or "purpose without meaning". The latter is just plain illogical. As soon as anyone, formal biologist or not, begins speaking of "the purpose of genitals" or whatever, they are already, whether they consciously intend to or not, assuming meaning. That, to me, can only mean design. But I'll let that last point go because so many of you do not see that. The point I WON'T let go of is that you can't one minute speak of the purpose of anything, and then the next deny that it has a purpose. If eyes, ears, or genitals "have a purpose", then we must admit that, and THAT is what any self-respecting biologist must admit. Having admitted that, they must then admit that homosexual behavior is contrary to that natural use (purpose).

Also, it is conceivable that my viewpoint exists only because it has been "tolerated". But it is equally conceivable that it exists because it is the truth - in which case it wouldn't matter whether it were "tolerated" or not, any more than the failure of the Catholic Church to tolerate Galileo in the 16th century affected what we believe to actually be the case today.

Richard Dawkins is no doubt a biologist - what he is ignorant on is religion - he doesn't know the thing of which he speaks - or more accurately, he has familiarized himself to a degree with the more primitive versions, and has learned little to nothing about the histories of either the Catholic or Orthodox Churches, let alone their theology, and he is evidently completely ignorant of apologetics as well. For the same reason Bertrand Russell and similar thinkers also disqualify themselves. If you're going to rail against something, for heaven's sake learn the best that your opponents have to offer and defeat that!

I need a large-size image with the circle and line through it saying "No scarecrows!" Can anyone oblige?

[rusmeister]

Oh, I quite agree about that last stuff. Don't remember if it's this thread or another, but I recently said the same thing. Seeing my attitude of tolerance in their early years can't help but imprint the same attitude on my children to some degree.

And, obviously, I'm thrilled with whatever degree of success I see. Not only because I believe this is the best way to live, but because, if everyone had the same attitude as me, the world would be a wonderfully peaceful, loving place.

If seemed you meant something else by "force," though. Why would you have to "go underground"?? If you lose the vote, you'll feel the need to not just stop trying to spread the Word of God, but to hide your beliefs? Your beliefs are much more welcome in my world than mine are in yours. Stick around! Express your beliefs all you want. I'd rather you did that than constantly tell the rest of us that our beliefs are wrong. I don't remember ever seeing you post about the aspects of God and your beliefs that fill you with joy. Things that people might be attracted to. Things that would make me smile for you, the way I smile for many people whose beliefs are far different than mine.

Still, if your beliefs do not rule the world, and mine do, the stuff you've been posting all along is still perfectly acceptable.

(Negations first:)

Ask Sindatur if it's perfectly acceptable.

Your philosophy adds up to the idea that beliefs are welcome, because they do not matter; because they do not reflect truth that also affects you. That IS pluralism (I reserve the use of the term for religious/philosophical pluralism, the only kind that matters) and it is an enemy of Faith, as Faith is the enemy of pluralism. (article use intentional)

As to "underground", we already see what is happening. If you remember, I posted actual cases of lawsuits, pending or already won, when the new morality forces people of traditional morality to act in contradiction to their faith or to shut their business down. From that Arizona photographer to Catholic Charities in Massachusetts, the demands to conform are real - and they are intolerable. I already know that as a public school teacher, I would not be able to stay in my job long - if a kid comes to me for advice about homosexual feelings, I am going to have to tell him/her what I believe - and put my job on the line, because what I believe is not tolerated by the public ideology. I MUST guide children away from sin; I may not pretend that it is "normal" or "all right" - and this is exactly what public employees are expected to do. So we are already discriminated against (to use your language in the way you usually mean it) in public life. It is not difficult for me to see two or three steps down the road to where what we teach is not tolerated in public at all - where it is equated to the new concept of "hate crime", and to where first things like land permits or whatever are denied, leading to the final illegality of what the Faith teaches. This would not be the first time that believers have had to go underground - but the Faith has always survived.

So sorry, Fist, your pluralism and my faith are incompatible.

I do agree with you, though, that I have probably been talking about the wrong things. That I should be posting about things that do bring joy and comfort. I've said to read writers that are better than me; that I don't hold a candle to. You refuse. As for me, the question is not whether Faith magically makes people ideally joyful - that is a gift, and it's never something that one should rely on for faith - but what would a person be like if they did not hold the faith? Or why is it that I do not have Tracie's gift of radiating joy? (To reference something you have experience of, and also to underscore that I believe that on one of the most important questions, she was very very right.)
That's where Lewis's "Mere Christianity, ch 10 "Nice People or New Men" helps me. The most relevant part:

I think this is the right moment to consider a question which is often
asked: If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer
than all non-Christians? What lies behind that question is partly something
very reasonable and partly something that is not reasonable at all. The
reasonable part is this. If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement
in a man's outward actions -if he continues to be just as snobbish or
spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before-then I think we must
suspect that his "conversion" was largely imaginary; and after one's
original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is
the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in
"religion" mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just
as in an illness "feeling better" is not much good if the thermometer shows
that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is
quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by
results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave
well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The
wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true
that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world
talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on
the truth of Christianity itself.
But there is another way of demanding results in which the outer world
may be quite illogical. They may demand not merely that each man's life
should improve if he becomes a Christian: they may also demand before they
believe in Christianity that they should see the whole world neatly divided
into two camps -Christian and non-Christian-and that all the people in the
first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people
in the second. This is unreasonable on several grounds.
(1) In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more
complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians
and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who
are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that
name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly
becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are
people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who
are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense
than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are
being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their
religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to
Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led
to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to
leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist
teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before
Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there
are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of
inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much
use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the
mass. It is some use comparing cats and dogs, or even men and women, in the
mass, because there one knows definitely which is which. Also, an animal
does not turn (either slowly or suddenly) from a dog into a cat. But when we
are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are
usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about
two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. If you want to
compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two
real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass
tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time.
(2) Suppose we have come down to brass tacks and are now talking not
about an imaginary Christian and an imaginary non-Christian, but about two
real people in our own neighbourhood. Even then we must be careful to ask
the right question. If Christianity is true then it ought to follow (a) That
any Christian will be nicer than the same person would be if he were not a
Christian. (b) That any man who becomes a Christian will be nicer than he
was before. Just in the same way, if the advertisements of White-smile's
toothpaste are true it ought to follow (a) That anyone who uses it will have
better teeth than the same person would have if he did not use it. (b) That
if anyone begins to use it his teeth will improve. But to point out that I,
who use Whitesmile's (and also have inherited bad teeth from both my
parents), have not got as fine a set as some healthy young Negro who never
used toothpaste at all, does not, by itself, prove that the advertisements
are untrue. Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than
unbelieving Dick Firkin. That, by itself, does not tell us whether
Christianity works. The question is what Miss Bates's tongue would be like
if she were not a Christian and what Dick's would be like if he became one.
Miss Bates and Dick, as a result of natural causes and early upbringing,
have certain temperaments: Christianity professes to put both temperaments
under new management if they will allow it to do so. What you have a right
to ask is whether that management, if allowed to take over, improves the
concern. Everyone knows that what is being managed in Dick Firkin's case is
much "nicer" than what is being managed in Miss Bates's. That is not the
point. To judge the management of a factory, you must consider not only the
output but the plant. Considering the plant at Factory A it may be a wonder
that it turns out anything at all; considering the first-class outfit at
Factory B its output, though high, may be a great deal lower than it ought
to be. No doubt the good manager at Factory A is going to put in new
machinery as soon as he can, but that takes time. In the meantime low output
does not prove that he is a failure.
(3) And now, let us go a little deeper. The manager is going to put in
new machinery: before Christ has finished with Miss Bates, she is going to
be very "nice" indeed. But if we left it at that, it would sound as though
Christ's only aim was to pull Miss Bates up to the same level on which Dick
had been all along. We have been talking, in fact, as if Dick were all
right; as if Christianity was something nasty people needed and nice ones
could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded.
But this would be a fatal mistake. The truth is that in God's eyes Dick
Firkin needs "saving" every bit as much as Miss Bates. In one sense (I will
explain what sense in a moment) niceness hardly comes into the question.
You cannot expect God to look at Dick's placid temper and friendly
disposition exactly as we do. They result from natural causes which God
Himself creates. Being merely temperamental, they will all disappear if
Dick's digestion alters. The niceness, in fact, is God's gift to Dick, not
Dick's gift to God. In the same way, God has allowed natural causes, working
in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow
mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness. He intends,
in His own good time, to set that part of her right. But that is not, for
God, the critical part of the business. It presents no difficulties. It is
not what He is anxious about. What He is watching and waiting and working
for is something that is not easy even for God, because, from the nature of
the case, even He cannot produce it by a mere act of power. He is waiting
and watching for it both in Miss Bates and in Dick Firkin. It is something
they can freely give Him or freely refuse to Him. Will they, or will they
not, turn to Him and thus fulfil the only purpose for which they were
created? Their free will is trembling inside them like the needle of a
compass. But this is a needle that can choose. It can point to its true
North; but it need not. Will the needle swing round, and settle, and point
to God?

I think that I really am messed up like Miss Bates (I think most of us are, in one way or another). Maybe I have some mild form of Asperger's. I don't know. But I do know that I am unfinished material, and I have seen that what I have found can give that to me, even though I don't have it in and of myself. Once in a while, I actually experience it. But most of the time, I'm left with just me, and an awareness that I need to improve, that I need to be more full of joy and gratitude. I figure that's an advance over the person who figures they don't need that, at least.

That's why I say to read amazing people like Lewis and Chesterton. Especially GKC, whose humor and joy just bubble over, and of which I am quite envious. If they don't work for you, try Schmemann or Men' for more discussion of spiritual experience. I am the least worthy of reading.
I myself would like to die the way Schmemann or Fr Victor Sokolov en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sokolov died - expressing joy and gratitude for their lives.
I think I mentioned that it was my conversation with Fr Victor that convinced me to become Orthodox, and despite the things I have failed to achieve, I have no regrets - I know I have done the right thing, and that longing for emotional charges may be fine, but that I am personally called to live without them.

If you check out the page, you'll be able to corroborate a few things. I saw him when he was already dying and being treated - he was crossing the street and his wife, "matushka" Barbara - who later died of something similar -was jealously hurrying him along, but he stopped and came over to my car and just wanted to know about us. No thought for himself, none of the usual stories of diseases and treatment. THAT'S who I want to be like - and to be jovial, like Chesterton, and radiating joy, like Tracie.

[Fist and Faith]

Oh, I quite agree about that last stuff. Don't remember if it's this thread or another, but I recently said the same thing. Seeing my attitude of tolerance in their early years can't help but imprint the same attitude on my children to some degree.

And, obviously, I'm thrilled with whatever degree of success I see. Not only because I believe this is the best way to live, but because, if everyone had the same attitude as me, the world would be a wonderfully peaceful, loving place.

If seemed you meant something else by "force," though. Why would you have to "go underground"?? If you lose the vote, you'll feel the need to not just stop trying to spread the Word of God, but to hide your beliefs? Your beliefs are much more welcome in my world than mine are in yours. Stick around! Express your beliefs all you want. I'd rather you did that than constantly tell the rest of us that our beliefs are wrong. I don't remember ever seeing you post about the aspects of God and your beliefs that fill you with joy. Things that people might be attracted to. Things that would make me smile for you, the way I smile for many people whose beliefs are far different than mine.

Still, if your beliefs do not rule the world, and mine do, the stuff you've been posting all along is still perfectly acceptable.

(Negations first:)

Ask Sindatur if it's perfectly acceptable.

I can't say I've seen enough of Sundatur's posts to answer for him one way or another. But I'd be surprised if he could not accept a world where people don't like what every other person in the world is doing, or even if they say they don't like what every other person in the world is doing. The difference is that you want to force everyone to not do what you don't like.

I started to reply to the other things before your Lewis quote. But it was turning into a book, and an unnecessary one, at that. The bottom line about education is the same as what I just said. You want to force your views onto everyone. The want the public school system to teach your beliefs as facts. I want it to teach verifiable, reproducable, predictable things as facts, and to teach what your beliefs are. Along with what my beliefs are. And the Dalai Lama's; Ramakrishna; and on and on. I think we should all have a better knowledge of the world's religions, since religion is such a gigantic part of the world.

As to "underground", we already see what is happening. If you remember, I posted actual cases of lawsuits, pending or already won, when the new morality forces people of traditional morality to act in contradiction to their faith or to shut their business down. From that Arizona photographer to Catholic Charities in Massachusetts, the demands to conform are real - and they are intolerable. I already know that as a public school teacher, I would not be able to stay in my job long - if a kid comes to me for advice about homosexual feelings, I am going to have to tell him/her what I believe - and put my job on the line, because what I believe is not tolerated by the public ideology. I MUST guide children away from sin; I may not pretend that it is "normal" or "all right" - and this is exactly what public employees are expected to do. So we are already discriminated against (to use your language in the way you usually mean it) in public life. It is not difficult for me to see two or three steps down the road to where what we teach is not tolerated in public at all - where it is equated to the new concept of "hate crime", and to where first things like land permits or whatever are denied, leading to the final illegality of what the Faith teaches. This would not be the first time that believers have had to go underground - but the Faith has always survived.

So sorry, Fist, your pluralism and my faith are incompatible.

No. Some versions of pluralism, but not mine. Just as some forms of Christianity would have all homosexuals executed, although yours would not. I'm not objecting to your beliefs in the same way I would object to those of Phelps or the KKK, and I'd like it if you gave me the same consideration. My pluralism would never say that what you teach will not be tolerated in public at all, and it certainly wouldn't make what the Faith teaches illegal. If you say, "But you can't prevent another form of pluralism from gaining power, and doing that even though you wouldn't like it", I will say, "But you can't prevent another version of Christianity from gaining power, and executing all homosexuals." Nobody can guarantee their view would lead to a perfect future, even by its own standards. So let's just talk to each other, ok?

I do agree with you, though, that I have probably been talking about the wrong things. That I should be posting about things that do bring joy and comfort. I've said to read writers that are better than me; that I don't hold a candle to. You refuse.

Again, this is nonsense. I've read many things you've posted. And I've read much more Lewis than you've posted. In addition, I've read about things that are far removed from my beliefs (some much closer to yours than to mine), and taken great joy in them. Some of them are wonders of human thought and expression.

But you insist that only by reading everything of Chesterton can I be said to have given your writers a chance. That's rubbish, as well as insulting. I don't like Chesterton's writing. I often can't understand what he's saying. When I do, he's often wrong, and sometimes hypocritical. I don't remember ever seeing joy, and the only humor I've seen is the kind that's intended to put others down. SO SUE ME. I can't usually understand him, and I don't like him when I can. That's not anywhere close to the same thing as refusing to read writers that are better than you.

For that matter, I'm not always going to agree with everything anyone you recommend says. I don't agree with everything the deeply religious writers whose works I do love said. Your problem is that you find insult in disagreement. If you want me to read something just to know what it is, then we're fine. If you want me to read something so that I will come to embrace your beliefs, then you are very like going to be disappointed, and angry, and say I didn't give them a chance. Or that I misunderstood. But I can still disagree with something I do understand. Such things happen, you know. Present something as something you think is great, and has great meaning to you - cool. Present it while we're debating some point as a trump card that I must be convinced by, and tell me why my feelings about it are wrong - bad.

As for me, the question is not whether Faith magically makes people ideally joyful - that is a gift, and it's never something that one should rely on for faith - but what would a person be like if they did not hold the faith? Or why is it that I do not have Tracie's gift of radiating joy? (To reference something you have experience of, and also to underscore that I believe that on one of the most important questions, she was very very right.)
That's where Lewis's "Mere Christianity, ch 10 "Nice People or New Men" helps me. The most relevant part:

I think this is the right moment to consider a question which is often
asked: If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer
than all non-Christians? What lies behind that question is partly something
very reasonable and partly something that is not reasonable at all. The
reasonable part is this. If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement
in a man's outward actions -if he continues to be just as snobbish or
spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before-then I think we must
suspect that his "conversion" was largely imaginary; and after one's
original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is
the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in
"religion" mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just
as in an illness "feeling better" is not much good if the thermometer shows
that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is
quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by
results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave
well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The
wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true
that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world
talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on
the truth of Christianity itself.
But there is another way of demanding results in which the outer world
may be quite illogical. They may demand not merely that each man's life
should improve if he becomes a Christian: they may also demand before they
believe in Christianity that they should see the whole world neatly divided
into two camps -Christian and non-Christian-and that all the people in the
first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people
in the second. This is unreasonable on several grounds.
(1) In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more
complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians
and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who
are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that
name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly
becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are
people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who
are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense
than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are
being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their
religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to
Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led
to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to
leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist
teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before
Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there
are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of
inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much
use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the
mass. It is some use comparing cats and dogs, or even men and women, in the
mass, because there one knows definitely which is which. Also, an animal
does not turn (either slowly or suddenly) from a dog into a cat. But when we
are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are
usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about
two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. If you want to
compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two
real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass
tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time.
(2) Suppose we have come down to brass tacks and are now talking not
about an imaginary Christian and an imaginary non-Christian, but about two
real people in our own neighbourhood. Even then we must be careful to ask
the right question. If Christianity is true then it ought to follow (a) That
any Christian will be nicer than the same person would be if he were not a
Christian. (b) That any man who becomes a Christian will be nicer than he
was before. Just in the same way, if the advertisements of White-smile's
toothpaste are true it ought to follow (a) That anyone who uses it will have
better teeth than the same person would have if he did not use it. (b) That
if anyone begins to use it his teeth will improve. But to point out that I,
who use Whitesmile's (and also have inherited bad teeth from both my
parents), have not got as fine a set as some healthy young Negro who never
used toothpaste at all, does not, by itself, prove that the advertisements
are untrue. Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than
unbelieving Dick Firkin. That, by itself, does not tell us whether
Christianity works. The question is what Miss Bates's tongue would be like
if she were not a Christian and what Dick's would be like if he became one.
Miss Bates and Dick, as a result of natural causes and early upbringing,
have certain temperaments: Christianity professes to put both temperaments
under new management if they will allow it to do so. What you have a right
to ask is whether that management, if allowed to take over, improves the
concern. Everyone knows that what is being managed in Dick Firkin's case is
much "nicer" than what is being managed in Miss Bates's. That is not the
point. To judge the management of a factory, you must consider not only the
output but the plant. Considering the plant at Factory A it may be a wonder
that it turns out anything at all; considering the first-class outfit at
Factory B its output, though high, may be a great deal lower than it ought
to be. No doubt the good manager at Factory A is going to put in new
machinery as soon as he can, but that takes time. In the meantime low output
does not prove that he is a failure.

I very much disagree with the premise that Christians should be nicer than non-Christians. There's nothing about non-Christianity that insists on non being nice. Or happy. Or good. Even if niceness, happiness, and goodness are particularly important teachings of Christianity, there's no reason to think those things can only be achieved by Christianity. Why wouldn't we expect a non-Christian to be generous? Or friendly? Or helpful? Or whatever? Just because I don't think God tells me I should be that way, I won't be that way? Maybe I would, just because it's my nature. Or maybe I would because some other faith instilled those things in me. All Christians are expected to be nicer than all non-Christians? Not only arrogant, but not a remotely clear interpretation of the history of the world. Plenty of people of other faiths have been every bit as nice as any Christian.

So maybe it's no surprise that I think Christianity's success at making people be nicer could only be judged on a case-by-case basis.

(3) And now, let us go a little deeper. The manager is going to put in
new machinery: before Christ has finished with Miss Bates, she is going to
be very "nice" indeed. But if we left it at that, it would sound as though
Christ's only aim was to pull Miss Bates up to the same level on which Dick
had been all along. We have been talking, in fact, as if Dick were all
right; as if Christianity was something nasty people needed and nice ones
could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded.
But this would be a fatal mistake. The truth is that in God's eyes Dick
Firkin needs "saving" every bit as much as Miss Bates. In one sense (I will
explain what sense in a moment) niceness hardly comes into the question.
You cannot expect God to look at Dick's placid temper and friendly
disposition exactly as we do. They result from natural causes which God
Himself creates. Being merely temperamental, they will all disappear if
Dick's digestion alters. The niceness, in fact, is God's gift to Dick, not
Dick's gift to God. In the same way, God has allowed natural causes, working
in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow
mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness. He intends,
in His own good time, to set that part of her right. But that is not, for
God, the critical part of the business. It presents no difficulties. It is
not what He is anxious about. What He is watching and waiting and working
for is something that is not easy even for God, because, from the nature of
the case, even He cannot produce it by a mere act of power. He is waiting
and watching for it both in Miss Bates and in Dick Firkin. It is something
they can freely give Him or freely refuse to Him. Will they, or will they
not, turn to Him and thus fulfil the only purpose for which they were
created? Their free will is trembling inside them like the needle of a
compass. But this is a needle that can choose. It can point to its true
North; but it need not. Will the needle swing round, and settle, and point
to God?

I think that I really am messed up like Miss Bates (I think most of us are, in one way or another). Maybe I have some mild form of Asperger's. I don't know. But I do know that I am unfinished material, and I have seen that what I have found can give that to me, even though I don't have it in and of myself. Once in a while, I actually experience it. But most of the time, I'm left with just me, and an awareness that I need to improve, that I need to be more full of joy and gratitude. I figure that's an advance over the person who figures they don't need that, at least.

That's why I say to read amazing people like Lewis and Chesterton. Especially GKC, whose humor and joy just bubble over, and of which I am quite envious. If they don't work for you, try Schmemann or Men' for more discussion of spiritual experience. I am the least worthy of reading.
I myself would like to die the way Schmemann or Fr Victor Sokolov en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sokolov died - expressing joy and gratitude for their lives.
I think I mentioned that it was my conversation with Fr Victor that convinced me to become Orthodox, and despite the things I have failed to achieve, I have no regrets - I know I have done the right thing, and that longing for emotional charges may be fine, but that I am personally called to live without them.

If you check out the page, you'll be able to corroborate a few things. I saw him when he was already dying and being treated - he was crossing the street and his wife, "matushka" Barbara - who later died of something similar -was jealously hurrying him along, but he stopped and came over to my car and just wanted to know about us. No thought for himself, none of the usual stories of diseases and treatment. THAT'S who I want to be like - and to be jovial, like Chesterton, and radiating joy, like Tracie.

Ah! Now this is all great! "This is what I believe. This is what my beliefs do for me." No matter what you think, reason and logic will never make a non-believer into a believer. Never has. Same with making a non-believer out of a believer. We all feel something. Some specific, some vague. Not everyone does, but some of us, in whatever camp we're in, use reason and logic to validate what we feel. It's easy for each of us to make our beliefs seem like the most obvious, logical view possible. But it doesn't seem to convince anyone else, does it. And there's the danger that telling the other that they're views are illogical will make them even less likely to consider our view.

But this stuff...! This is what inspires people to try to understand your faith. If someone else sees joy, humor, compassion, and kindness in someone, I just might check the person out. (That attitude from you is why I bought TEM in the first place. Alas, not all people see someone in the same way. We're not all identical. Don't sweat it.)

In my opinion, you should start a thread called "The Joy of rusmeister's Faith". Nobody ever debated in the Stephen C thread. Nobody's fighting in the Kabbalah thread. Or in "What is it you believe?" And nobody would in such a thread by you. We'd all celebrate your faith with you. And reading the things you often quote might hit us differently than when you're trying to use them to knock some sense into us.

[Seven Words]

Rus--

You example of Dick and Miss Bates has one problem....the assumption that being "under new management" will improve things. And if it doesn't, the excuse (I've heard it many times from Christians, it seems highly logical you would say the same, if I am incorrect, by all means say so) is that their conversion/acceptance of Christ was not really sincere. That make sit untestable. It's an interesting assertion, but unsupported by evidence. And negative evidence is automatically discounted.

[rusmeister]

Rus--

You example of Dick and Miss Bates has one problem....the assumption that being "under new management" will improve things. And if it doesn't, the excuse (I've heard it many times from Christians, it seems highly logical you would say the same, if I am incorrect, by all means say so) is that their conversion/acceptance of Christ was not really sincere. That make sit untestable. It's an interesting assertion, but unsupported by evidence. And negative evidence is automatically discounted.

Thanks for taking the time to read that quoted text! (I think it's better to read the whole book. It's a fairly easy read, but the ideas may be shocking to one who had never encountered them.)

Right now, though, I am not talking about science or the scientific method and what can be "proved" - and the person who has made that the only way that they can accept any truth is deeply impoverished, ignoring the basis on which the scientific method developed - as ONE of the ways to arrive at truth, not the only way. Hope I don't need to reference metaphysics and ontology here to get that across.

It's also quite unclear from start to finish how you could measure that in others. You would need to a) that they had actually and fully submitted themselves to the faith and b) exactly what is wrong, and to what extent. You can really only know that about yourself. Have you ever fully submitted yourself to faith? If not, how can you speak of what it "proves" or not?

Finally, one of the things we learn in Christianity is that we were unaware of just how "dirty", or messed-up, we are. The person who does really submit himself is very likely to discover that many more things were wrong than he first suspected, and to a much greater degree. As I learn, that not only seducing women is actually evil, but that the evil starts in my thoughts, when I undress them in my mind, or that what I ascribed to (what I thought was) my good temper is actually very superficial, and if that is really tested my "good temper" folds like an accordion. These are things that are difficult to communicate to, let alone glean from others, and cannot be subjected to scientific tests, any more than the love of your girlfriend/wife can be.

Hope that helps!

[aliantha]

How did we get from talking about diversity and tolerance to talking about Christianity again? It's like it's the only discussion worth having, or something....