All Saints and All Souls Feast Days
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- StCatherine
- Dan_Ellsworth
- athanasius
- Dan_Ellsworth
- athanasius
- Dan_Ellsworth
- athanasius
- StCatherine
- geojohnp
- ed_smith
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» StCatherine - Hi Dan
It's Monday morning and I'm back at the library. I guess we don't need to get away from the internet the way we need to get away from other things.And we are hard-working souls who post articles early so we can take time off and not be late. (My acknowlegment of the e-mail I got from you right before I left my house. I feel so guilty I haven't gotten to a place where I can e-mail you back.)
-- posted by StCatherine
» Dan_Ellsworth - Acknowledgement noted. Greetings to Athanasius
OK, I understand, Kathryn, I hadn't bothered to worry yet. :-) Acknowledgement acknowledged.Athanasius, "militant" and PC brings up interesting thoughts. I think evangelism is considered anti-PC, intensely offensive, even as a hostile action sometimes - not because it IS but because historically there HAVE been some very toxic and hostile attempts at evangelism. But if, as one missionary remarked, Christian evangelism is one beggar telling another where to get bread, that's neither arrogant nor hostile. But that's a hard "sell" to the world at large. (No disagreement with you, just rambling on, with your words as a starting point.)
-- posted by Dan_Ellsworth
» athanasius - Evangelism
I agree. Evangelism is seen as an intrusion into someone elses personal reality. The problem is that people don't believe that there is Truth anymore so having some bothersome Christian tell them where to find it disturbs them. Partly because the Christian is seen as arrogant because he will actualy say that there is Truth and he is also a disturbance to the much easier path of relativism.-- posted by athanasius
» Dan_Ellsworth - Athanasius: YES!
Athanasius: YES! It stems from disbelief that there is truth. Relativists can be such absolutists about that.You and I might disagree about 1,369 different things and yet have worthwhile discussions because we both believe Truth exists and we'd both like to get a clearer picture.
-- posted by Dan_Ellsworth
» athanasius - Truth
A few years ago I participated in a journalism internship in DC and lived in a townhouse with about eight other guys.My evangelical roommate and I were constantly getting into arguments with two "cultural" Jews and a "cultural" Catholic (that is, they were born Jewish but had abandoned all belief in God) in the house over the existence of absolute right and wrong. After a couple of weeks I figured out that they didn't even accept that man was distinct from animals which completely changed the discussion because we hadn't even been arguing from the same belief in reality.
Recently the archbishop of Los Angeles spoke at a conference in Colorado Springs on the topic of "dialogue". He said that in order to have dialogue you can never appeal to doctrine or authority. If you can't appeal to what you believe is true, it becomes impossible to actually agree on anything meaningful.
Ian
-- posted by athanasius
» Dan_Ellsworth - Compliments to the Archbishop
Athanasius: The Archbishop seems to have it right, especially in view of your experience. You need some significant common premises from which to reason.-- posted by Dan_Ellsworth
» athanasius - Truth
I made a mistake in my last message. The archbishop said that true dialogue can never involve doctrine or authority.My comment was that "If you can't appeal to what
you believe is true, it becomes impossible to actually agree on anything meaningful." Unfortunately, he was talking about dialogue within the Catholic Church where authority and doctrine are two essentials to any discussion.
Like we were saying before, if you don't start from a common premise, discussion is impossible. The archbishop thinks that true dialogue among Catholics can only occur when you throw out authority and doctrine - two of the most important premises of Catholicism.
-- posted by athanasius
» StCatherine - Same guy?
Last summer (around July) when the diocese of Los Angeles lost a lawsuit to parents of children who had been sexually molested by a priests, I read an AP report that the Bishop said that when the parents started the suit he didn't realize they were so serious. I have a good memory so that's a pretty good quote of the AP report.I wonder if this Bishop in LA and the Archbishop are the same person. I'm not familiar with the church structure there or if the AP reporter would confuse a Bishop and an Archbishop.
-- posted by StCatherine
» ed_smith - Re: Truth
In response to message posted by athanasius:I'm not sure what authority andoctorinene you mean to throw out. It would seem that you would need the authority of thdoctorinene (the word of God) to have any meaningful discussion. I would hope that the "common ground" premise anyone would start from would be Holy Scripture. A discussion about anything other than that would be superfluous. What do you think? or have I completely misunderstood your point?
-- posted by ed_smith
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