Re: political

"Alex W." <ingilt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That's like me saying I must be a better person because I have a family tree
going back to 1179. Sorry, but that does not wash for me; the winner of
Crufts is not automatically a better dog than any one of Mickey's mongrel
mutts because they have X generations of breeding.

That's absolutely right. 2 prime examples of "hybrid vigor".


For that matter, any
rabbi has upwards of 5,000 years of "substance" to back him up. Does that
make him more authoritative than the Pope?





I still fail to see fundamental differences between a
fire-and-brimstone showman on the television, and a fire-and-brimstone
preacher in Wittenberg who went around defacing church property.

It's the difference between your wife and a whore. The superficial
trappings look the same to an outsider, but one has substance, while
the other is all facade. (And Luther didn't deface any church
property.)

Sorry, my bad -- he just hammered nails in the door (which, yes, I know, was
perfectly acceptable back when). The defacement and barbarism was
perpetrated by his followers.




but he has hundreds of thousands who
would swear on a stack of first-edition bibles that this is the real
deal.

We have a similar problem in mathematics. Real mathematicians know
that certain things are impossible: Squaring the circle, trisecting
an angle, etc. Yet every so often (daily, really) some amateur comes
along who says had can do one of these things. If he gets annoying
enough, some of us will bother with telling him he's full of ***.
(Often politely and often pointing him in the direction of the
right answer.) But invariably, his response is that the "mathematical
establishment" is a "closed clique" that won't give his "great and
innovative ideas" a fair hearing. All the research journals reject
his paper, and this is just more proof to him that he's being
"suppressed". But the fact is, he's just a crackpot.

So how would a non-mathematician know who was right? The crackpot
says "blah blah blah" and the real mathematicians argues "blah
blah blah." Who's right?

What you do is examine the evidence. If your crackpot through some cosmic
joke really has come up with a viable proof, can you afford to dismiss it
because the messenger does not conform to the rules of the game? What you
should not do is insist that he cannot possibly be correct because his form
is unorthodox. Jesus himself was unorthodox, went against the grain of the
then pervailing theology.



Theology is not a science, but it is a discipline. IF you study it
(and I'm not saying you should) THEN you could make an informed
decision.

It is a discipline. Or rather, it is a number of competing disciplines.
Not only that, it is a fundamental mistake to regard its findings as
authoritative simply because it was arrived at in a structure hallowed with
age.




"10-tupled"? Is that a mathematical term?
;-)

Actually...yes. And so is "zillion" (which is slightly less
than infinity.)

Is that more of less than a GAzillion?




Televangelist or parish pastor -- they both presume to the authority
of "guiding" if not determining their flock's beliefs, actions and
entire lifestyle by virtue of claims of expert or indeed privileged
interpretation of Scripture.

Which is not a bad thing in itself. It's not much different than
a classroom teacher. I'm hired to teach math because I'm an expert
at it, I studied it, I publish it, and by golly I'll decide what
happens in my classroom. A congregation wants a pastor who will
teach correct doctrine and he can't do that unless he knows correct
doctrine.

Yes, it is bad.
It stops the congregation from exploring their own relationship with God, on
their own terms and in their own understanding. It guides exegesis and
belief into a safe box and does its damnedest to make sure not a stray
thought escapes.




The showmanship of a Falwell or Swaggart
is merely window-dressing,

No, it's not "mere." Lex credendi lex orandi. A "normal" church
has the pulpit off to the side of the altar, because the pastor
is not as important as God. Swaggart doesn't even have an altar
or a pulpit, but a stage. He doesn't have a congregation, but
an audience. What little doctrine is there is very corrupt, and
the "showmanship" is a manifestation or symptom of the corruption.

That symbolism can cut two ways, as the pulpit is off to one side but is
also higher than the altar.

You would probably not have enjoyed talking to my old teacher. He was quite
firm in his views that all sorts of protestantism was corrupt, the devil's
work and only barely less iniquitous than Jehovah's Witnesses or Moonies.
In terms of theology, his pedigree was every bit as long as yours....




And, again (although it's a waste of electrons) I ask what you base
your stereotype on.

This is not a stereotype. This is my conclusion to their common claim
of knowing better than the laity what God wants and how they should
lead lives pleasing to Him.

Yet my pastor never says anything about "how to live a God-pleasing
life." You do indeed have a stereotype, and it's based on TV
"priestitutes". My pastor doesn't fit your stereotype. Lots of
pastors don't.


Faith should be between the individual and his God

Says you. But the only reason you think this, that I can tell, is
that your intuition likes it. But, in fact, it's not a well-thought-out
"doctrine", and there are serious flaws with it (and many
untested assumptions.)

You would say that.
Your faith is predicated upon a closed system.




The moment someone gets up, says
"I know that God wants us to be this way"

For the zillionth time, Christianity isn't about what we do,
but about what God did. Christian pastors don't say "we all
have to do this", but "here's what God did." That's how you
can tell a faithful pastor from a charletan.

How strange, then, that much of what one can hear in church is "this is what
you have to do because God (and the Church) tells you to". Who to have sex
with, in what manner and when. How to dress, how to spend your money, what
to eat even....



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