In case we haven't beaten the abortion horse to death yet

[Avatar]

You focused on blue - but blue is not the end of the color spectrum - not when you take light into account. Agreed that you can find the fifty shades of blue. But when you take it far enough, it becomes white or black, depending on which way you take it.

But then it's not blue any more. Black is a total absence of color; white is all colors. You can't reach either of those endpoints and still call it blue.

Precisely my point. That's the fate of all colors. That's why I didn't speak of blue, Avatar did. Darkness doesn't reveal colors. Colors depend on light - and we often forget that necessary and essential fact.

You're taking the metaphor in entirely the wrong direction. Black and white are meaningless when speaking of morality, in the sense of being a colour. You're saying there are all these shades of grey, so there must be an ideal good and an ideal bad.

I'm saying that all these shades of grey mean that there is no ideal good or bad, just gradiations.

--A

[rusmeister]

But then it's not blue any more. Black is a total absence of color; white is all colors. You can't reach either of those endpoints and still call it blue.

Precisely my point. That's the fate of all colors. That's why I didn't speak of blue, Avatar did. Darkness doesn't reveal colors. Colors depend on light - and we often forget that necessary and essential fact.

You're taking the metaphor in entirely the wrong direction. Black and white are meaningless when speaking of morality, in the sense of being a colour. You're saying there are all these shades of grey, so there must be an ideal good and an ideal bad.

I'm saying that all these shades of grey mean that there is no ideal good or bad, just gradiations.

--A

If there ARE gradations at all, Av, that we can perceive, then obviously they gradate to points where all we can possibly perceive is 'blackness' or 'whiteness'; you may speak of imagined points beyond that, but it is meaningless for us if we cannot perceive a difference, or gradation. All the same, if there are distinguishable gradations, then there is a scale. If there is a reliable scale that does not keep moving around (the only kind worth even talking about), then there are absolutes that are the starting assumptions that we do any measuring by at all.

[Avatar]

Yes, but the point is where all we can perceive. If somebody else perceives your pitch black as a darker shade of grey, what makes you right and him wrong? (And hell, some of what you perceive to be that pitch black is perceived by others to be merely a hint of grey at worst.)

Who are you to draw the line? Who am I to?

--A

[rusmeister]

Yes, but the point is where all we can perceive. If somebody else perceives your pitch black as a darker shade of grey, what makes you right and him wrong? (And hell, some of what you perceive to be that pitch black is perceived by others to be merely a hint of grey at worst.)

Who are you to draw the line? Who am I to?

--A

2 thoughts -
1) I would say that the absolute is effectively at or beyond the end point of the darkest (or lightest) any of us could perceive. The perception of the individual can be stunted or blinded. Collectively, though, over space and time (and I think a common error of moderns is to consider space only and forget about its extension through time), if you have overwhelming agreement that the desires for food, drink, sex, killing, etc, be controlled and limited, then you can identify a 'magnetic north' for morality. An individual might reject that 'north', but he is almost certainly wrong when the collective voice of all humanity speaks against him. So we can safely exclude individual perceptions that fall outside of that range and dispense with the idea that morality has a 360 degree arc.

2nd thought - I agree that the individual is not the one to draw the line. The individual simply cannot be trusted. Our capacity for self-deception is enormous. Only reference to an outside authority, one that, if we were to really look, we found consistently right, and most especially where we ourselves are wrong - surely practically all of us would not like or be made uncomfortable by certain aspects of absolute truth. There is no way that it could please all of us in every aspect, so we should expect to find things we don't like mixed in with what we do find compellingly true.
It is only logical. If you find someone wiser than you, and more right than you are, then it is only logical to learn from them. This is even more true for multi-millennial institutions that simply could not have continued to exist unless they contain enormous chunks of truth.

Therefore it would be far better for you to be Muslim or Buddhist or Jewish (if you will not be Christian) than merely a committed agnostic individual, forever limited by your own limitations of knowledge and time. You have another, what? 40 years? I think I have significantly less, myself. Having found an Authority that is consistently right about me - and more right than I myself am, is a good and rational basis to accept it.

[Avatar]

You don't trust individuals, I don't trust groups. Which are prone not only to self-deception, but to the cumulative self-deception of all its members.

--A

[Orlion]

Also, the group can not exist without the individuals. If you reject one individual's perception of the universe, it follows that you ought to reject all other individuals' perceptions. After that, there's nothing left for a group consensus.

[Fist and Faith]

I agree that the individual is not the one to draw the line. The individual simply cannot be trusted. Our capacity for self-deception is enormous. Only reference to an outside authority, one that, if we were to really look, we found consistently right,

Fine, in theory. But I find your source to be wrong an alarming percentage of times. A dangerous percentage of times. Many people do. If we find an outside authority that we can agree on, we're in business.

Of course, if we all agree on something, we don't need an outside source.

and most especially where we ourselves are wrong

I couldn't find and count all the times you've said this, but you've said it many times. So what's up? It doesn't make sense simply as is. It sounds like you've accepted this authority, and, so, choose to believe it must be right when it disagrees with what you feel is right. I assume there's a specific issue that illustrates this idea?

[aliantha]

To take this analogy to the extreme, you'd have to think about whether Evil is a total lack of Good. If a child conceived by rape goes on to cure cancer, was the rape an act of Evil?

Yes, it was. The evil was ultimately turned to good ends, but not thanks to the evil. The person choosing evil became an instrument of good. Gollum chose evil (self) but became an instrument of good quite unwillingly - and to his own cost.

Well, I'm glad we've got that settled!

Evil is the choice/placing of self over others. This actually means that a lot of the time we are actually sinning in very small ways that, due to our condition, we wouldn't even notice or call sin. It can involve the mere taking of offense, or actions expressing impatience (out of a million examples), such as cursing, or even brusquely/rudely hurrying another. It is a part of our nature that we are born with, thanks to the Fall. It was not part of our design, but a self-perpetuating 'virus' that even cute little babies have, although it is very hard to see in them (and as they are not capable of much in terms of knowledge and will, they don't do much of anything in the direction of evil).

With all due respect, rus, this is a load of crap. There's nothing inherently evil about *any* human being -- before or after your mythical Fall. And you've negated what you said earlier about separating the act from the person committing the act.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with placing yourself ahead of others. That's how you protect yourself from harm, fer cryin' out loud. There's nothing "sinful" or Evil about it.

This is how the church sucks people in with its double-talk: You're human, so you're going to screw up. When you screw up, you've sinned. You'd better come to church and get right with God!

I would say that it is WE who exist in comparison to that Good (and not Evil, which is a created thing; that is a thing born of choice). Now we have to define what a 'thing' is and whether an idea is an abstract thing or not....

So...there's an ultimate Good (God, for your purposes) but not an ultimate Evil? I'm not buying this, either. If Evil is only what we define it to be, then we're back to the social contract, which society (which would be one of your groups ) can redefine at any time. I'm pretty sure that's not what you're after.

[rusmeister]

You don't trust individuals, I don't trust groups. Which are prone not only to self-deception, but to the cumulative self-deception of all its members.

--A

Agreed. I don't believe in trusting groups just because they are groups. I'm just saying that the self is at least equally as deceptive as groups.

[rusmeister]

Also, the group can not exist without the individuals. If you reject one individual's perception of the universe, it follows that you ought to reject all other individuals' perceptions. After that, there's nothing left for a group consensus.

This is not consistent logic. If I reject one individual's perception, it may be because I have found it to be wrong. I may even have found my OWN to be wrong (and have actually done so). There is nothing that says I must reject all individual thought. Individual thought may still contain truth. As I was saying to Av, IF I find an organization that is consistently right, and more so than me, then at the very least it behooves me to learn from them. If I find it to be ALWAYS right, then it behooves me to follow it as long as I find it to be right.

[rusmeister]

I agree that the individual is not the one to draw the line. The individual simply cannot be trusted. Our capacity for self-deception is enormous. Only reference to an outside authority, one that, if we were to really look, we found consistently right,

Fine, in theory. But I find your source to be wrong an alarming percentage of times. A dangerous percentage of times. Many people do. If we find an outside authority that we can agree on, we're in business.

Of course, if we all agree on something, we don't need an outside source.

and most especially where we ourselves are wrong

I couldn't find and count all the times you've said this, but you've said it many times. So what's up? It doesn't make sense simply as is. It sounds like you've accepted this authority, and, so, choose to believe it must be right when it disagrees with what you feel is right. I assume there's a specific issue that illustrates this idea?

Sure. My understandings of ideas on teaching of faith and doctrine.
I thought I KNEW what faith taught and that therefore I didn't need to think further. I thought that I, as an individual, had the final answer worked out on my own authority and on that basis abandoned faith for a good twenty years. What I later learned was that my understandings - despite having been brought up in a faith and even seriously practicing and learning about it - were rather rude, primitive and actually wrong in many ways.
Two personal examples I'll give (and remember, I'm saying they are personal and not some kind of absolute proof for you) is on my views on confession and on veneration of the saints and praying to them.
I thought one confessed to the priest and the priest forgave them - and so, as an ex-Baptist, I rejected the notion out of hand. I later learned that a correct - and much more mature - understanding is that a person confesses to God BEFORE the priest - who is a witness of the confession. I had always thought (thanks to that Baptist upbringing) that prayer = worship and that one could only pray to God, and thought that veneration WAS worship due to God alone. I learned that within the traditional faiths (Orthodoxy, Catholicsm, Anglicanism...) that prayer is simply spiritual communication, and that Scripture teaches that the dead are alive in God. Logically, therefore, we can just as easily as Saint Nicholas to pray for us as we can ask our friend Joe to pray for us. All we're doing is asking. (There's more, but it's a lot to go into). I also learned that we venerate our nation's flag if and when we salute it or treat it respectfully, and that we are venerating our dearly departed mother's photo if we kiss it, and thus, saw that my former understandings completely failed to understand what those people are actually doing. IOW, I was wrong. I had many thoughts on theology, death, hell and punishment that I used as justifications to reject faith - that were simply wrong and ignorant of deeper-level responses that make sense of them and satisfy both my reason and experience. A lot of things people say here are similar to things I once said myself - so I both sympathize and want to try to deliver at least a little of the much deeper pond that I have found to those that would at least be curious as to whether there WERE deeper responses. It's useless talking to those that are not, of course.

I don't think I have ever seen anything from you establishing that the authority that I accept is wrong. (Sure you have indirectly denied many of its teachings. But you have never, AFAIK, taken its doctrines on directly and proven them wrong. Have you ever gone head-to-head with the Orthodox Church?)

[rusmeister]

Evil is the choice/placing of self over others. This actually means that a lot of the time we are actually sinning in very small ways that, due to our condition, we wouldn't even notice or call sin. It can involve the mere taking of offense, or actions expressing impatience (out of a million examples), such as cursing, or even brusquely/rudely hurrying another. It is a part of our nature that we are born with, thanks to the Fall. It was not part of our design, but a self-perpetuating 'virus' that even cute little babies have, although it is very hard to see in them (and as they are not capable of much in terms of knowledge and will, they don't do much of anything in the direction of evil).

With all due respect, rus, this is a load of crap. There's nothing inherently evil about *any* human being -- before or after your mythical Fall. And you've negated what you said earlier about separating the act from the person committing the act.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with placing yourself ahead of others. That's how you protect yourself from harm, fer cryin' out loud. There's nothing "sinful" or Evil about it.

This is how the church sucks people in with its double-talk: You're human, so you're going to screw up. When you screw up, you've sinned. You'd better come to church and get right with God!

Hi Ali!
Not sure about due respect there. I don't think you completely understand the view I have tried to (no doubt, poorly) express; I also suspect that you may be reading some typical fundamentalist/evangelical understandings into what I have said.

The doctrine of the Fall explains why we all do wrong. It is a consistent and coherent explanation for wrong-doing, selfish, bad and evil behavior. Dismissing it as "a load of crap" simply ignores its thesis and the massive amount of evidence supporting it. (Specifically - supporting the doctrine of sin.) You can reject it, but some people reject evolutionary theory out of hand without examining the evidence offered in favor of it as well.

I haven't negated anything. Ancestral sin (which Catholics understand as "Original Sin", although our understandings diverge somewhat) says that we are born cut off from God (contrary to original design) and with a natural tendency to turn to self - even at the cost of others. We still have free will. We have an impulse to sin. We can, at any time, give into it or not. Thus, a person can resist the Fallen aspect of his nature - a difficult task, or give into it - the far easier of the two choices. Put another way, the Iron Giant en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Giant (now a favorite flick of mine!) CAN choose not to be a gun - but it involves struggle and ain't easy.

There certainly IS something wrong with placing yourself ahead of others (note that I speak specifically of doing so at the expense of others). The means to measure this is to put yourself in the place of the others that you put yourself ahead of. We feel it every time someone cuts us off in traffic. I see sin proved to me every day many times. It is a little harder to see in myself, because I am naturally predisposed to excuse in myself what I wouldn't excuse in others - but with practice, one can begin to see it in the self.

Your last point is correct in its essence, but expresses the idea in a really over-simplistic manner that begins by patronizing rather than examining the idea.

I would say that it is WE who exist in comparison to that Good (and not Evil, which is a created thing; that is a thing born of choice). Now we have to define what a 'thing' is and whether an idea is an abstract thing or not....

So...there's an ultimate Good (God, for your purposes) but not an ultimate Evil? I'm not buying this, either. If Evil is only what we define it to be, then we're back to the social contract, which society (which would be one of your groups ) can redefine at any time. I'm pretty sure that's not what you're after.

I don't propose that evil is only what we define it to be. Indeed, it took fairly direct revelation from Authority in some cases to reveal what had ceased to be obvious.

[Fist and Faith]

and most especially where we ourselves are wrong

I couldn't find and count all the times you've said this, but you've said it many times. So what's up? It doesn't make sense simply as is. It sounds like you've accepted this authority, and, so, choose to believe it must be right when it disagrees with what you feel is right. I assume there's a specific issue that illustrates this idea?

Sure. My understandings of ideas on teaching of faith and doctrine.
I thought I KNEW what faith taught and that therefore I didn't need to think further. I thought that I, as an individual, had the final answer worked out on my own authority and on that basis abandoned faith for a good twenty years. What I later learned was that my understandings - despite having been brought up in a faith and even seriously practicing and learning about it - were rather rude, primitive and actually wrong in many ways.
Two personal examples I'll give (and remember, I'm saying they are personal and not some kind of absolute proof for you) is on my views on confession and on veneration of the saints and praying to them.
I thought one confessed to the priest and the priest forgave them - and so, as an ex-Baptist, I rejected the notion out of hand. I later learned that a correct - and much more mature - understanding is that a person confesses to God BEFORE the priest - who is a witness of the confession. I had always thought (thanks to that Baptist upbringing) that prayer = worship and that one could only pray to God, and thought that veneration WAS worship due to God alone. I learned that within the traditional faiths (Orthodoxy, Catholicsm, Anglicanism...) that prayer is simply spiritual communication, and that Scripture teaches that the dead are alive in God. Logically, therefore, we can just as easily as Saint Nicholas to pray for us as we can ask our friend Joe to pray for us. All we're doing is asking. (There's more, but it's a lot to go into). I also learned that we venerate our nation's flag if and when we salute it or treat it respectfully, and that we are venerating our dearly departed mother's photo if we kiss it, and thus, saw that my former understandings completely failed to understand what those people are actually doing. IOW, I was wrong. I had many thoughts on theology, death, hell and punishment that I used as justifications to reject faith - that were simply wrong and ignorant of deeper-level responses that make sense of them and satisfy both my reason and experience. A lot of things people say here are similar to things I once said myself - so I both sympathize and want to try to deliver at least a little of the much deeper pond that I have found to those that would at least be curious as to whether there WERE deeper responses. It's useless talking to those that are not, of course.

Ah. I thought you were talking about different kinds of things. Moral stances on things. Like if you feel that something or other is right, and the Church convinces you intellectually that it's wrong, even though it still feels right to you.

I agree that the individual is not the one to draw the line. The individual simply cannot be trusted. Our capacity for self-deception is enormous. Only reference to an outside authority, one that, if we were to really look, we found consistently right,

Fine, in theory. But I find your source to be wrong an alarming percentage of times. A dangerous percentage of times. Many people do. If we find an outside authority that we can agree on, we're in business.

Of course, if we all agree on something, we don't need an outside source.

I don't think I have ever seen anything from you establishing that the authority that I accept is wrong. (Sure you have indirectly denied many of its teachings. But you have never, AFAIK, taken its doctrines on directly and proven them wrong. Have you ever gone head-to-head with the Orthodox Church?)

That's not what I mean. You think we should all accept this outside authority. But for me to accept such a thing, I would have to agree with that authority. Which I do not. I think it is wrong in many matters. I'm not saying I have objective proof, only that I do not agree. As far as I'm concerned, it is wrong. Therefore, I do not accept this authority.

[aliantha]

Evil is the choice/placing of self over others. This actually means that a lot of the time we are actually sinning in very small ways that, due to our condition, we wouldn't even notice or call sin. It can involve the mere taking of offense, or actions expressing impatience (out of a million examples), such as cursing, or even brusquely/rudely hurrying another. It is a part of our nature that we are born with, thanks to the Fall. It was not part of our design, but a self-perpetuating 'virus' that even cute little babies have, although it is very hard to see in them (and as they are not capable of much in terms of knowledge and will, they don't do much of anything in the direction of evil).

With all due respect, rus, this is a load of crap. There's nothing inherently evil about *any* human being -- before or after your mythical Fall. And you've negated what you said earlier about separating the act from the person committing the act.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with placing yourself ahead of others. That's how you protect yourself from harm, fer cryin' out loud. There's nothing "sinful" or Evil about it.

This is how the church sucks people in with its double-talk: You're human, so you're going to screw up. When you screw up, you've sinned. You'd better come to church and get right with God!

Hi Ali!
Not sure about due respect there. I don't think you completely understand the view I have tried to (no doubt, poorly) express; I also suspect that you may be reading some typical fundamentalist/evangelical understandings into what I have said.

And here we go. I disagree, so I don't completely understand.

I would ask you for some of this "massive amount of evidence supporting" the doctrine of sin, but you and I both know that it won't change my mind. I see in your church exactly the same thing that I see in other Christian churches: the idea that humanity is flawed from the get-go. I reject that idea wholeheartedly.

One more time: I don't believe in Hell. I don't believe there is such a thing as sin. I *do* believe those concepts were developed to scare people into doing what the Church wanted them to do. Some of the Church's aims are benign -- love your neighbor, etc. -- but some of them are not. As dukkha and others here have observed, some of the Church's aims are solely self-serving for the Church. You can't argue with the monolith or you'll fall out of Grace. Do what you're told. Even when you're told to kill people. Even when you're told that that Indian over there isn't really human, so it's okay to take his land and force him to live somewhere else. Even when your daughter is told that no, sorry, she can't be a priest or have *any* job outside the home because she doesn't have the right genitalia -- and she can forget taking control of her sexual life, too.

And yes, I was flippant with my last point. The Church's first line of defense is this notion that we're all flawed from the start. Well, that's bullshit. And you have to be outside of the system (which you never truly were, rus -- you must have always felt the guilt your Baptist upbringing inculcated in you) to see it.

I would say that it is WE who exist in comparison to that Good (and not Evil, which is a created thing; that is a thing born of choice). Now we have to define what a 'thing' is and whether an idea is an abstract thing or not....

So...there's an ultimate Good (God, for your purposes) but not an ultimate Evil? I'm not buying this, either. If Evil is only what we define it to be, then we're back to the social contract, which society (which would be one of your groups ) can redefine at any time. I'm pretty sure that's not what you're after.

I don't propose that evil is only what we define it to be. Indeed, it took fairly direct revelation from Authority in some cases to reveal what had ceased to be obvious.

Okay. So your argument was with the use of the phrase "ideal Evil". I get that Evil, for you, would *never* be ideal. Just wanted to clear that up.[/i]

[rusmeister]

I couldn't find and count all the times you've said this, but you've said it many times. So what's up? It doesn't make sense simply as is. It sounds like you've accepted this authority, and, so, choose to believe it must be right when it disagrees with what you feel is right. I assume there's a specific issue that illustrates this idea?

Sure. My understandings of ideas on teaching of faith and doctrine.
I thought I KNEW what faith taught and that therefore I didn't need to think further. I thought that I, as an individual, had the final answer worked out on my own authority and on that basis abandoned faith for a good twenty years. What I later learned was that my understandings - despite having been brought up in a faith and even seriously practicing and learning about it - were rather rude, primitive and actually wrong in many ways.
Two personal examples I'll give (and remember, I'm saying they are personal and not some kind of absolute proof for you) is on my views on confession and on veneration of the saints and praying to them.
I thought one confessed to the priest and the priest forgave them - and so, as an ex-Baptist, I rejected the notion out of hand. I later learned that a correct - and much more mature - understanding is that a person confesses to God BEFORE the priest - who is a witness of the confession. I had always thought (thanks to that Baptist upbringing) that prayer = worship and that one could only pray to God, and thought that veneration WAS worship due to God alone. I learned that within the traditional faiths (Orthodoxy, Catholicsm, Anglicanism...) that prayer is simply spiritual communication, and that Scripture teaches that the dead are alive in God. Logically, therefore, we can just as easily as Saint Nicholas to pray for us as we can ask our friend Joe to pray for us. All we're doing is asking. (There's more, but it's a lot to go into). I also learned that we venerate our nation's flag if and when we salute it or treat it respectfully, and that we are venerating our dearly departed mother's photo if we kiss it, and thus, saw that my former understandings completely failed to understand what those people are actually doing. IOW, I was wrong. I had many thoughts on theology, death, hell and punishment that I used as justifications to reject faith - that were simply wrong and ignorant of deeper-level responses that make sense of them and satisfy both my reason and experience. A lot of things people say here are similar to things I once said myself - so I both sympathize and want to try to deliver at least a little of the much deeper pond that I have found to those that would at least be curious as to whether there WERE deeper responses. It's useless talking to those that are not, of course.

Ah. I thought you were talking about different kinds of things. Moral stances on things. Like if you feel that something or other is right, and the Church convinces you intellectually that it's wrong, even though it still feels right to you.

Fine, in theory. But I find your source to be wrong an alarming percentage of times. A dangerous percentage of times. Many people do. If we find an outside authority that we can agree on, we're in business.

Of course, if we all agree on something, we don't need an outside source.

I don't think I have ever seen anything from you establishing that the authority that I accept is wrong. (Sure you have indirectly denied many of its teachings. But you have never, AFAIK, taken its doctrines on directly and proven them wrong. Have you ever gone head-to-head with the Orthodox Church?)

That's not what I mean. You think we should all accept this outside authority. But for me to accept such a thing, I would have to agree with that authority. Which I do not. I think it is wrong in many matters. I'm not saying I have objective proof, only that I do not agree. As far as I'm concerned, it is wrong. Therefore, I do not accept this authority.

Thanks, Fist. The one useful thing I could add to the first point is that I saw some things - most especially sexually morality - in a completely different light. From masturbation to casual sexual relations, at any rate, I saw nothing wrong. I then learned why they are wrong and the teaching makes sense to me and has convinced me that my former views were wrong, based on incomplete - and broken bits of other people's - philosophy (ies), lacking a holistic worldview where the sexual behavior is connected to everything else in a manner that makes sense of everything. My former views were based mostly on personal pleasure and self-gratification without reference to anything else, and now I see how I did damage to myself and others along the way without knowing it. As long as you don't see that, it won't convince you, but since I do, I have learned that the Church is right and I was wrong.

[rusmeister]

With all due respect, rus, this is a load of crap. There's nothing inherently evil about *any* human being -- before or after your mythical Fall. And you've negated what you said earlier about separating the act from the person committing the act.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with placing yourself ahead of others. That's how you protect yourself from harm, fer cryin' out loud. There's nothing "sinful" or Evil about it.

This is how the church sucks people in with its double-talk: You're human, so you're going to screw up. When you screw up, you've sinned. You'd better come to church and get right with God!

Hi Ali!
Not sure about due respect there. I don't think you completely understand the view I have tried to (no doubt, poorly) express; I also suspect that you may be reading some typical fundamentalist/evangelical understandings into what I have said.

And here we go. I disagree, so I don't completely understand.

I would ask you for some of this "massive amount of evidence supporting" the doctrine of sin, but you and I both know that it won't change my mind. I see in your church exactly the same thing that I see in other Christian churches: the idea that humanity is flawed from the get-go. I reject that idea wholeheartedly.

One more time: I don't believe in Hell. I don't believe there is such a thing as sin. I *do* believe those concepts were developed to scare people into doing what the Church wanted them to do. Some of the Church's aims are benign -- love your neighbor, etc. -- but some of them are not. As dukkha and others here have observed, some of the Church's aims are solely self-serving for the Church. You can't argue with the monolith or you'll fall out of Grace. Do what you're told. Even when you're told to kill people. Even when you're told that that Indian over there isn't really human, so it's okay to take his land and force him to live somewhere else. Even when your daughter is told that no, sorry, she can't be a priest or have *any* job outside the home because she doesn't have the right genitalia -- and she can forget taking control of her sexual life, too.

And yes, I was flippant with my last point. The Church's first line of defense is this notion that we're all flawed from the start. Well, that's bullshit. And you have to be outside of the system (which you never truly were, rus -- you must have always felt the guilt your Baptist upbringing inculcated in you) to see it.

Hi again,
When you say "guilt inculcated into me", I again see assumptions based on your knowledge of the western theology you were familiar with that I myself do not and cannot espouse. So you're arguing more against your former (Espicopalian?) standards, much of which I would join you in complaining against; most especially against the juridical view of sin.

Since you yourself believe certain things, I'm not sure what I can communicate, except for one thing. When I speak of evidence, I speak of something real that CAN be demonstrated. You may call it something else, you may explain it differently, but I am speaking of actual human behavior that can be observed and therefore submitted as evidence. I already mentioned drivers cutting you off in traffic (never mind the drivers YOU or I may cut off in traffic). I could take a thousand other examples of selfish behavior in favor of the self and to the detriment of others - or even of the self - and it would serve as direct evidence that there is such a thing as sin, even though I would reject the juridical definition of it that you are most likely familiar with (so let's dispense with the language of crime and punishment).

Since there IS such observable behavior, it cannot be argued that it was "developed" by the Church. The most you can say is that it is explained by the Church. Although even here, we mean different things by the word "Church" and so again our communication is retarded by misunderstanding (although I believe I understand your meaning, and do not share it - the Church I refer to does not include the Roman Church post-schism). Your idea that the development is self-serving (presumably of Church leaders) is completely inconsistent with the explanations and definitions, although certainly arguments can be made, especially in the West, that individual leaders did sometimes use Church teachings in self-serving manners.

As to "doing what you are told", that is n/a to the intelligent Christian. We DON'T "check our brains at the door". We are offered the explanations for the teachings and can examine them at leisure. The acceptance is not blind.

I don't get that you've attempted to understand the internal explanations as to why women can't be priests - if you did you wouldn't be speaking of "having the right genitalia", but would be responding to the much more mature explanations that you would probably still disagree with, and your idea of "taking control of one's sexual life also shows a lack of understanding of how wee see sexual life holistically, as something connected to everything else. If you do at some point want to actually understand, I'll do my best to explain my understandings and connect you to sources that would give you much more accurate pictures than the ones you now seem to have.

Frederica Mathewes-Green is still the best person for you to dialog with, imo. She responds to e-mails, AFAIK. MUCH better than talking to me - and closer to you in age and in terms of where you are coming from. I think you'd be surprised at both the sympathy and understanding that you'd find.
www.frederica.com/welcome/

[Fist and Faith]

I don't get that you've attempted to understand the internal explanations as to why women can't be priests - if you did you wouldn't be speaking of "having the right genitalia", but would be responding to the much more mature explanations that you would probably still disagree with, and your idea of "taking control of one's sexual life also shows a lack of understanding of how wee see sexual life holistically, as something connected to everything else. If you do at some point want to actually understand, I'll do my best to explain my understandings...

Can't speak for ali, but I'd be interested in hearing your understanding of why women can't be priests. Obviously, I'll disagree, no matter what you say. I'll possibly ask for clarification on this or that, but I won't argue. The topic comes up often enough in life, and I'd like to have a basic understanding of it.

[aliantha]

When you say "guilt inculcated into me", I again see assumptions based on your knowledge of the western theology you were familiar with that I myself do not and cannot espouse.

That may be what you see, but that's not what I mean.

When you send a little kid to church, he/she picks up on a lot of stuff. Part of what kids pick up is "you're gonna go to Hell if you do X," but another part is the warm, fuzzy, coming-home feeling of being with your parents, who love you. It's what dukkha's talking about when he says he can no longer agree with the Catholic Church's teachings but he misses the ceremonial stuff. It's spiritual comfort food. (It's also part of the reason why Wicca uses the same basic format for its rituals as the Christian Church uses for its services -- because that's the format that the creators of ceremonial magick were familiar with, and Wicca inherited it.)

The church does this deliberately, of course. It's concerned with kids' immortal souls, sure. But it also wants to get 'em young. It wants them to feel like they're missing something if they don't go to church, and to feel like they've "come home" whenever they do go back.

You couldn't help but pick up on this, rus. No matter how you eventually felt about your parents' religious persuasion, you were programmed to *want* to go back to church. And I misspoke before; it wasn't just because of guilt, but also because you perceived church as a safe haven.

(Espicopalian?)

No. Nothing. That's what I've been trying to tell you for -- how many years have we been at this?

I was raised as far outside the church as it's possible to be in this allegedly Judeo-Christian nation. Dad was brought up Catholic but turned atheist in his 20s. Mom wasn't much of anything. I never went to *any* church 'til friends in grade school invited me. I wasn't baptized Episcopal 'til I was in my late 30s (obviously it didn't take ).

So when you try to say that I haven't pursued an adult understanding of Christianity, you're wrong.

What I *do* have, in abundance, is an outsider's view of the Christian faith. The Big Picture, if you will. And I just don't see the Truth there that you profess to see. What I see -- when I get past the people on all the different branches shouting that their interpretation of The Book is the Real Truth -- what I see at the root of the tree is a whole lot of concepts that just don't feel right to me. I do not sense Truth in them. And no amount of "talking to experts" is going to change that for me -- it just feels like those experts are trying to sell me a product that I have no use for.

I suppose I could hedge my bets and join a church -- even, hey, the Orthodox Church! -- just in case there really is a Hell and everything else they say is also true. But then I wouldn't be true to my own beliefs. And if I am not true to myself, then I am truly lost.

(I hope this post is coherent. I got interrupted approximately 873 times while I was composing it...)

[rusmeister]

I don't get that you've attempted to understand the internal explanations as to why women can't be priests - if you did you wouldn't be speaking of "having the right genitalia", but would be responding to the much more mature explanations that you would probably still disagree with, and your idea of "taking control of one's sexual life also shows a lack of understanding of how wee see sexual life holistically, as something connected to everything else. If you do at some point want to actually understand, I'll do my best to explain my understandings...

Can't speak for ali, but I'd be interested in hearing your understanding of why women can't be priests. Obviously, I'll disagree, no matter what you say. I'll possibly ask for clarification on this or that, but I won't argue. The topic comes up often enough in life, and I'd like to have a basic understanding of it.

Hi Fist, and thanks!
(Always happy to try to offer some of those things that I have learned that are so different from the perspectives that people here have. Understanding does depend on what light you see things in.)

Two of the shorter responses I'd offer, one Orthodox and the other, well, practically Orthodox:

ldolphin.org/priestesses.html

I SHOULD LIKE BALLS INFINITELY BETTER', SAID CAROLINE Bingley, 'if they were carried on in a different manner . . It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.' 'Much more rational, I dare say,' replied her brother, 'but it would not be near so much like a Ball.' (1) We are told that the lady was silenced: yet it could be maintained that Jane Austen has not allowed Bingley to put forward the full strength of his position. He ought to have replied with a distinguo. In one sense conversation is more rational for conversation may exercise the reason alone, dancing does not. But there is nothing irrational in exercising other powers than our reason. On certain occasions and for certain purposes the real irrationality is with those who will not do so. The man who would try to break a horse or write a poem or beget a child by pure syllogizing would be an irrational man; though at the same time syllogizing is in itself a more rational activity than the activities demanded by these achievements. It is rational not to reason, or not to limit oneself to reason, in the wrong place; and the more rational a man is the better he knows this.

These remarks are not intended as a contribution to the criticism of Pride and Prejudice. They came into my head when I heard that the Church of England (2) was being advised to declare women capable of Priests' Orders. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities. To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence. And the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation. My concern with the proposal is of a more theoretical kind. The question involves something even deeper than a revolution in order.

I have every respect for those who wish women to be priestesses. I think they are sincere and pious and sensible people. Indeed, in a way they are too sensible. That is where my dissent from them resembles Bingley's dissent from his sister. I am tempted to say that the proposed arrangement would make us much more rational 'but not near so much like a Church'.

For at first sight all the rationality (in Caroline Bingley's sense) is on the side of the innovators. We are short of priests. We have discovered in one profession after another that women can do very well all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone. No one among those who dislike the proposal is maintaining that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning and whatever else seems necessary for the pastoral office. What, then, except prejudice begotten by tradition, forbids us to draw on the huge reserves which could pour into the priesthood if women were here, as in so many other professions, put on the same footing as men? And against this flood of common sense, the opposers (many of them women) can produce at first nothing but an inarticulate distaste, a sense of discomfort which they themselves find it hard to analyze.

That this reaction does not spring from any contempt for women is, I think, plain from history. The Middle Ages carried their reverence for one Woman to a point at which the charge could be plausibly made that the Blessed Virgin became in their eyes almost 'a fourth Person of the Trinity'. But never, so fat as I know, in all those ages was anything remotely resembling a sacerdotal office attributed to her. All salvation depends on the decision which she made in the words Ecce ancilla; (3) she is united in nine months' inconceivable intimacy with the eternal Word; she stands at the foot of the cross. (4) But she is absent both from the Last Supper (5) and from the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. (6) Such is the record of Scripture. Nor can you daff it aside by Saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to Silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all 'prophesied', i.e. preached. (7) There were prophetesses even in Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses.

At this point the common sensible reformer is apt to ask why, if women can preach, they cannot do all the rest of a priest's work. This question deepens the discomfort of my side. We begin to feel that what really divides us from our opponents is a difference between the meaning which they and we give to the word 'priest'. The more they speak (and speak truly) about the competence of women in administration, their tact and sympathy as advisers, their national talent for 'visiting', the more we feel that the central thing is being forgotten. To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us. Our very eyes teach us this in church. Sometimes the priest turns his back on us and faces the East he speaks to God for us: sometimes he faces us and speaks to us for God. We have no objection to a woman doing the first: the whole difficulty is about the second. But why? Why should a woman not in this sense represent God? Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as 'God-like' as a man; and a given women much more so than a given man. The sense in which she cannot represent God will perhaps be plainer if we look at the thing the other way round.

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to 'Our Mother which art in heaven' as to 'Our Father'. Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity. Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask 'Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?'

But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters.

As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complementary organs of a mystical body. Lady Nunburnholme has claimed that the equality of men and women is a Christian principle. I do not remember the text in scripture nor the Fathers, nor Hooker, nor the Prayer Book which asserts it; but that is not here my point. The point is that unless 'equal' means 'interchangeable', equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and sensitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.

This is what common sense will call 'mystical'. Exactly. The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it - as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion.

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) (9) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course, be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, 'not near so much like a Ball'.

And this parallel between the Church and the Ball is not so fanciful as some would think. The Church ought to be more like a Ball than it is like a factory or a political party. Or, to speak more strictly, they are at the circumference and the Church at the Centre and the Ball comes in between. The factory and the political party are artificial creations - 'a breath can make them as a breath has made'. In them we are not dealing with human beings in their concrete entirety -only with 'hands' or voters. I am not of course using 'artificial' in any derogatory sense. Such artifices are necessary:

but because they are our artifices we are free to shuffle, scrap and experiment as we please. But the Ball exists to stylize something which is natural and which concerns human beings in their entirety - namely, courtship. We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.

Priestesses in the Church by C.S. Lewis

and

www.oca.org/QA.asp?ID=167&SID=3

QUESTION:

What is the orthodox stance on ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy, and how do you back it up?


ANSWER:

While a thorough answer to your question is beyond the scope of an e-mail, it can be said that the Orthodox Church precludes the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy. It is a matter of Holy Tradition, as well as a vision of ministry as something not limited to the ordained priesthood. In my limited experience of this subject I have come across theologians who posit that, while there may be no strictly theological objection to the ordination of women, Holy Tradition has never supported it, and that theological pursuits cannot be considered in isolation from the ongoing life of God's People known as Tradition. [It is important here to understand that Holy Tradition must not be confused with traditions (small "t", and plural) or customs.]

I would like to share a story with you to help illustrate: Shortly after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the militantly atheistic communist regime passed laws separating Church and state and separating the schools from the Church. Other laws forbade the ordained clergy from evangelizing, teaching religion to anyone, especially to children, etc. Clergy were limited to carring out religious rites within the confines of church walls -- which had been confiscated by the state. The goal of this anti-religious stance was to wipe out all religious expression and faith, since religion was seen as "the opium of the people" and an obstacle in the creation of pure socialism. Such would be the situation until the late 20th century. There is a story which relates how a Patriarch of Moscow, shortly after the Revolution, was asked by a Soviet leader, "What will the Church do after the last grandmother dies?" The Patriarch replied, "There will be another generation of grandmothers to take their place." Very prophetic words, especially when one considers that most of today's grandmothers within the former Soviet Union were mere children or not even born when these words were first spoken.

The point of the story: In Orthodoxy the ordained priesthood is, of course, essential. Yet other ministries, including that of the grandmothers who were capable of continuing the priestly ministry of handing on the faith to the younger generations when the ordained clergy had no possibly to do so, are equally essential. Saint Paul speaks of a variety of functions which are critical to making the ministry of the Church whole, complete, and lacking in nothing. While each of these functions may be different, each is absolutely necessary. Hence, the ordained priesthood is essential, yet there are a variety of other ministries which are extensions of the priestly ministry of Our Lord -- and these other ministries, in fact, must be carried out in order to ensure the fullness of the faith and Church life.

Orthodoxy does not see the priesthood has a "right" or a "privilege." It does not see the clergy as a caste apart from the laos tou Theou, the People of God. It does not understand ordination to the priesthood as a matter of justice, equality, political correctness, or human rights. No one, not even males, has the "right" to ordination; even our seminary catalogues state that the awarding of a divinity degree in no way guarantees ordination, as this is within the competency of the hierarchy alone. And no one, not even males, "chooses" ordination; we believe that it is God Who does the choosing, even if His will in this instance seems completely contrary with the understanding of this world or this culture or this era. [God's ways are not mankind's ways.] The clergy do not stand above the People of God; they stand in their midst, just as Christ stands in the midst of His People. Those who carry out essential ministries without being ordained also stand in the midst of God's People, for the ministries they pursue in the name of Our Lord also share in His work. The image of the Church is one in which the entire "laos tou Theou" work and worship together "with one mind" in harmony, upbuilding one another and striving to achieve unity, rather than planting division or focusing undue attention on differences or alleged inequalities.

It is interesting to note that the controversy over the ordination of women is a rather recent one with roots outside the Orthodox Church. It is also interesting to note that, while the controversy rages in other confessions and has been a source of division, enmity, and schism elsewhere, it has garnered far less interest among Orthodox Christians. While the matter surely warrants thorough study, discussion, and dialogue, especially within cultures such as our own, and while there are certain related questions which indeed beg serious discussion -- such as the role of deaconesses in the early Church -- care needs to be taken not to create an artificial issue. The teaching of the Church clearly encourages all persons, women as well as men, young as well as old, to undertake essential critical ministries in the life of the Church -- the grandmothers of the Soviet era had a far greater impact on the life of the Church than the clergy of their day; had those grandmothers been ordained clergy, they would not have been able to have the same powerful effect on generations which otherwise might have been lost. Perhaps the very success of the hordes of faithful grandmothers in their priestly ministry as grass-roots evangelizers is due not only to their faith, but to their understanding of ministry as a gift and a blessing and a calling and a vocation rather than a question of justice and equality, as is heard so often in heterodox circles.

If we truly believe that all that happens within the Body of Christ is directed and inspired by the Holy Spirit, we might well question why calls for the ordination of women only surfaced some 1,950 years after Christ. In His own time we see the exemplary ministry of the myrrh-bearing women who served Our Lord while the male disciples hid in fear and denied knowledge of Him.

While it is only my opinion that the question should never be silenced, I would also propose that its discussion must be conducted within the parameters of the Church's ongoing Tradition and not in post-modern secular or humanist categories which bear little relationship to the Gospel. While Orthodoxy has not accepted the ordination of women, it does laud a woman, the Theotokos, as the one who is "more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim" and holds her up as a model for all of God's People, male and female alike. In this light, salvation, not ordination, is the goal of Christian life.

While I am not sure if this answers your question, I do hope it puts the issue in a different light while offering a different perspective with which to continue prayerful reflection of the matter.



Do you have a question on the Orthodox Faith, Christianity, or the Orthodox Church in America? Contact Fr. John Matusiak at info@oca.org

[Fist and Faith]

Off to work now, so I'll have to read later. Bear in mind, though, that, while you said, "I'll do my best to explain my understandings and connect you to sources...", and I said, "I'd be interested in hearing your understanding...", you are not explaining your understandings.