homepage
  roll on christmas  
click here to find out more about ship of fools click here to sign up for the ship of fools newsletter click here to support ship of fools
community the mystery worshipper gadgets for god caption competition foolishness features ship stuff
discussion boards live chat cafe avatars frequently-asked questions the ten commandments gallery private boards register for the boards
 
Ship of Fools


Post new thread  Post a reply
My profile login | | Directory | Search | FAQs | Board home
   - Printer-friendly view Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
» Ship of Fools   » Ship's Locker   » Limbo   » Purgatory: We need more religion but we don’t need its zeal (Page 1)

 - Email this page to a friend or enemy.  
Pages in this thread: 1  2 
 
Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: We need more religion but we don’t need its zeal
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Terry Eagleton says we need more religion but we don't need its zeal.

quote:
Remarkably, Eagleton retains his high admiration for the Biblical portrait of Jesus while slamming institutional Christianity for failing to live up to the life of its founder and for getting in bed with the rich and powerful.
quote:
Channelling Jesus, who also raged against the religious machine of his day, he fumes against a “brand of piety… horrified by the sight of a female breast, but considerably less appalled by the obscene inequality between rich and poor,” and that “laments the death of a foetus, but is apparently undisturbed by the burning to death of children in Iraq or Afghanistan in the name of U.S. global dominion.”
And here's the clincher:

quote:
And if Christianity can recover its anti-establishment credentials then maybe more people will come to appreciate its beauty and profundity. For while many in the ancient world disdained the service and acts of charity that characterised the early faith, it was by these means that Christianity was able, by non-violent means, to overwhelm an empire.
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

[ 05. January 2015, 21:03: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Chorister

Completely Frocked
# 473

 - Posted      Profile for Chorister   Author's homepage     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

Well it will be interesting in Britain, then, to see if it comes back again with Government offloading some of that responsibility onto 'The Big Society'.

--------------------
Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.

Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692

 - Posted      Profile for Anyuta   Email Anyuta   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

I'm not at all sure that this flows naturally from the quotes you posted. I think Christianity lost it's power (to the extend that it has) not because of something that governments have done, but rather what Christianity itself has (in many cases) focused on. Government taking on social security and other simila issues formerly taken on primarily by the Chruch is no reason for the Church to step back and say "oh, well, that means we can focus more on making sure everyone lives up to our sexual morals, and to heck with other silly stuff like loving your neighbor, and turning the other cheek and whatnot".

That Ceasar is doing that which Ceasar does should have little impact on the Bride of Christ doing what the Bride does. if Government taking on some of the role frees up the Church to do more, that's great, because neither one has enough resouces to do it all! that the government helps some of the poor doesn't mean the Chruch shouldn' be helping those whom for whatever reason the Govt. didn't help. and certainly doesn't mean the Church should stop advocating for other issues.. there is always so much more that can be done.

focusing on the evils of a woman exposing her breasts rather than the evil of War? that's got absolutely zero to do with whether the government is providing help to the needy within it's country.

Furthermore, governments, generally, are limited in what they do to the boundaries of their jurisdiction. they are, by definition, National. whereas the Church is not (or shouldn 't be). The Chuch is (or should be ) universal. helping those outside one's civil government boundaries should be just as important to the Church as helpin htose within those boundaries. social security (or other such programs) only operate within a country.. the Chruch extends throughout the world, and should not say "oh, well, our work here is done" as long as there are people in the world in need of aid.

Of course, helping the needy is not the only role of the Church, but that seems to be the role focused on in your question, so I'll stick with that.

Posts: 764 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2009  |  IP: Logged
opaWim
Shipmate
# 11137

 - Posted      Profile for opaWim   Email opaWim   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

Only partly, I think.

Social security and charity are only two of the fruits of Christianity.
The de-Christianisation of social security, education, healthcare etc. continues to puzzle me. I can't figure out whether politics/government wanted that or that the management of these institutions were all too glad to let it happen. Fact is that here in the Netherlands salaries of these managers have exploded, while the people who do the work are paid less and less.

Does anybody really have a definitive, and simple, explanation for the decline of Christianity in say Western-Europe?

--------------------
It's the Thirties all over again, possibly even worse.

Posts: 524 | From: The Marshes | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:

I think Christianity lost it's power (to the extend that it has) not because of something that governments have done, but rather what Christianity itself has (in many cases) focused on.

So you agree with the article?

And yes my question was awkward....I guess I'm just struck by the decline of Christianity now......and what initially made it grow so rapidly....

And indeed if we were more active in social justice and charity areas then we might see a reversal.

But lots of churches are very active in social justice......

[ 23. April 2012, 14:13: Message edited by: Evensong ]

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208

 - Posted      Profile for Zach82     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Seems Terry is looking for Jesus down the well.

--------------------
Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:

Social security and charity are only two of the fruits of Christianity.

True IMO.

But many might argue otherwise.

quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:

Does anybody really have a definitive, and simple, explanation for the decline of Christianity in say Western-Europe?

Lots of people blame it on liberal Christianity and its emphasis on social justice rather than correct doctrine. [Big Grin]

Which of course - Terry Eagleton would disagree with!

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
From the linked article it seems like Mr. Eagleton doesn't want less religious zeal, just for the faithful to be zealous about something else (more aiding the poor and oppressed, less gay-bashing, rhetorical or otherwise, and keeping women "in their place"). This may be an example of what happens when the article and title are written by different people.

[ 23. April 2012, 14:20: Message edited by: Crœsos ]

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

 - Posted      Profile for Beeswax Altar   Email Beeswax Altar   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Terry Eagleton wants the Church to do what Terry Eagleton wants the Church to do. If the Church does, Eagleton suggests more people like Terry Eagleton might come to admire the beauty and profundity of Christianity. For as Jesus told the disciples, "Go into all the world and win the admiration of people like Terry Eagleton."

Last week on Slate, William Saletan and Ross Douthat discussed Douthat's new book, Bad Religion. You can read the whole conversation here. Something Douthat said in his final post applies to Terry Eagleton's comments as well.

quote:
Your instinct, understandably, is to look at my Christianity and judge it against the standards set by contemporary secular liberalism. So you applaud when the faith seems to provide a warrant for an egalitarian politics. You sigh when it seems insufficiently realistic and compassionate about modern sexual mores. And you favor a chronology of Christian history in which the faith is gradually dragged, by brave and courageous reformers, up from medieval darkness into Enlightenment. But when I look at your secular liberalism, I see a system of thought that looks rather like a Christian heresy, and not necessarily a particularly coherent one at that.



--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
opaWim
Shipmate
# 11137

 - Posted      Profile for opaWim   Email opaWim   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:

Does anybody really have a definitive, and simple, explanation for the decline of Christianity in say Western-Europe?

Lots of people blame it on liberal Christianity and its emphasis on social justice rather than correct doctrine. [Big Grin]
Even in better times there have always been liberal Christians (or whatever Proper Christians called those that irritated them), some were even canonized later on, posthumously of course, but -if visible- they tended to have conversion-techniques practiced upon them, which had a tendency to exterminate them.
So, rather than blaming the liberal Christians, we should blame the Proper Christians for not burning the liberals at the stake anymore. [Big Grin]

--------------------
It's the Thirties all over again, possibly even worse.

Posts: 524 | From: The Marshes | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Last week on Slate, William Saletan and Ross Douthat discussed Douthat's new book, Bad Religion. You can read the whole conversation here. Something Douthat said in his final post applies to Terry Eagleton's comments as well.

quote:
Your instinct, understandably, is to look at my Christianity and judge it against the standards set by contemporary secular liberalism. So you applaud when the faith seems to provide a warrant for an egalitarian politics. You sigh when it seems insufficiently realistic and compassionate about modern sexual mores.

If you know anything about Ross Douthat, this quote will immediately bring to mind an expression involving pots and kettles.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
tclune
Shipmate
# 7959

 - Posted      Profile for tclune   Email tclune   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Terry Eagleton wants the Church to do what Terry Eagleton wants the Church to do.

Yes, and you go on to say, in essence, that BA wants the Church to do what BA wants the Church to do. ISTM that you are both basically correct -- assuming that you are appealing to the better angels of your nature, you should be campaigning for the Church to get on board. We are all partial critters. Let us embrace the piece of the elephant that we have a hold on and do all that we can to lift it up. I rather doubt that we will be called to account for our partiality nearly so much as we will be called to account for our sloth.

--Tom Clune

[ 23. April 2012, 15:03: Message edited by: tclune ]

--------------------
This space left blank intentionally.

Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

 - Posted      Profile for Beeswax Altar   Email Beeswax Altar   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Ah the liberal version of the Landmark Baptist Trail of Blood.

--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

 - Posted      Profile for Beeswax Altar   Email Beeswax Altar   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
x-posted with tclune and Croesus

--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208

 - Posted      Profile for Zach82     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
When Christian action is not grounded in Christian dogmatics, Christian action becomes the mistress of whatever the heck one wants. In Terry's case here, Christian action is taken up with secular liberalism, and suddenly the Christian faith is a political movement espousing secular liberalism. What a surprise!

--------------------
Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272

 - Posted      Profile for Ender's Shadow   Email Ender's Shadow   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Despite the title of this piece - 'In Nothing We Trust' in fact the statistics in the piece indicate that nearly 50% of the US population trusts churches and religions and that this percentage has INCREASED in the past 9 years. The reality is that libruls such as TE and others are playing to their elitist friends by pretending there is a problem with the churches; unfortunately for them the churches challenge them on many levels as the churches and the arrogant elites are at the moment with the result that the elites want to pretend the churches don't exist - or reshape them to their agenda, and therefore to be less challenging to them.

--------------------
Test everything. Hold on to the good.

Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.

Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513

 - Posted      Profile for Alogon   Email Alogon   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Is Terry Eagleton an active professing Christian at all? My reaction depends on the answer, but I'm not entirely sure why it does or whether it should.

Who noticed the comment from "Zac"?

quote:
Virtually all the secular ideas that non-believers value have Christian origins. To pretend otherwise is to toss the substance of those ideas away. It was theologians and religiously minded philosophers who developed the concepts of individual and human rights. Same with progress, reason, and equality before the law: it is fantasy to suggest these values emerged out of thin air once people started questioning God.
It is one thing to criticize the church while attempting Christian commitment oneself, as is the right of all members IMHO. It is another thing to stand idly by and scoff at Christians for not upholding their own standards (or the critic's favorite ones) better than they do. How can the critic suppose that what he is demanding is possible? If the church had not upheld these standards, and indeed the sources for the life of Christ, far longer than most organizations have been in existence, how would the critic or the world even know about them in the first place?

The way of the world is that A and B try to reach an agreement. As a man of the world, Terry Eagleton has the right to make his offer to any organization he pleases. "Change yourself, so that you start doing such-and-such, and I might consider joining you." And the organization has every right to reply (and will probably do so): "your bargaining power isn't as great as you imagine. No deal, go jump in the lake." What grounds would Mr. Eagleton then have for complaint?

--------------------
Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.

Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
gorpo
Shipmate
# 17025

 - Posted      Profile for gorpo   Email gorpo   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
There´s a difference between not putting emphasis on "right doctrine" and not having a right doctrine at all. If the church leaves its basic beliefs it´s not church anymore, regardless of being more relevant or not.

Eagleton´s opinion is basically what the church should do to become relevant for non-believers. I guess the church should preach the Gospel for non-believers to convert, and not become a non-believing church to become atractive to non-believers.

It´s easy to say Jesus was nice but institutionalized christianity is evil. The fact is without institutionalized christianity we woulnd´t even have heard about Jesus.

Posts: 247 | From: Brazil | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I'm surprised

None of you think what Eagleton says has any merit (besides Anyuta perhaps) ?

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:

Does anybody really have a definitive, and simple, explanation for the decline of Christianity in say Western-Europe?

Lots of people blame it on liberal Christianity and its emphasis on social justice rather than correct doctrine. [Big Grin]
Even in better times there have always been liberal Christians (or whatever Proper Christians called those that irritated them), some were even canonized later on, posthumously of course, but -if visible- they tended to have conversion-techniques practiced upon them, which had a tendency to exterminate them.
So, rather than blaming the liberal Christians, we should blame the Proper Christians for not burning the liberals at the stake anymore. [Big Grin]

[Killing me]

I like the way you think. [Big Grin]

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I've started a new thread spinning off Alogon's post above, so as not to derail this one.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208

 - Posted      Profile for Zach82     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
I'm surprised

None of you think what Eagleton says has any merit (besides Anyuta perhaps) ?

His views of the Church are a caricature of the reality and, even worse, he makes Christ bow down to his own political agenda.

--------------------
Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

 - Posted      Profile for quetzalcoatl   Email quetzalcoatl   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

Only partly, I think.

Social security and charity are only two of the fruits of Christianity.
The de-Christianisation of social security, education, healthcare etc. continues to puzzle me. I can't figure out whether politics/government wanted that or that the management of these institutions were all too glad to let it happen. Fact is that here in the Netherlands salaries of these managers have exploded, while the people who do the work are paid less and less.

Does anybody really have a definitive, and simple, explanation for the decline of Christianity in say Western-Europe?

I doubt if there is one. I tend to think that Christianity was incorporated into the state in many places, and became part of social control, and therefore, has been discarded as such. I remember in the 50s, when religion at school just seemed like the headmaster making you do something, and if you didn't, you got punished, by him, I mean, not God. So naturally, we were all dying to say fuck you to him, and his form of social religious control.

I'm not saying this is definitive or simple at all, but I do think today people are less willing to accept any form of control in this way. Christianity is just stuck with the image of being regulatory and corporate.

--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011  |  IP: Logged
mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

 - Posted      Profile for mousethief     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Terry Eagleton wants the Church to do what Terry Eagleton wants the Church to do.

Yeah, unlike -- um -- unlike -- er --

[ 24. April 2012, 06:00: Message edited by: mousethief ]

--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I'm surprised. None of you think what Eagleton says has any merit (besides Anyuta perhaps)?

Well, Eagleton is basically naive concerning how humans function, and in consequence misunderstands the entire "project Jesus". If he is indeed a Marxist, then that's no particular surprise.

Here the body is used against the Body, i.e., helping others in their bodily state is used to argue against the embodiment of faith in the Church. But a truly human faith is embodied Divinity, and all idealistic dreaming about shedding the Body of Christ for the good of Christ will end precisely as the Marxist dream did last century: in a horrible, perverted embodiment that crushes these very dreams.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mary LA
Shipmate
# 17040

 - Posted      Profile for Mary LA   Author's homepage   Email Mary LA   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I first read Terry Eagleton years ago as a literary critic, along with Frederic Jameson and people like Raymond Williams. Pertinent perhaps for post-industrial societies of the north but not as convincing in the global south where most of us were looking at the impact of debt economics, international drug cartels and crime syndicates, etc, aware that the old Marxist socialist remedies were not going to address issues that had to do with the ethical creation of wealth rather than simply the redistribution of wealth.

And then I found Eagleton charting his preoccupation with Christianity in the London Review of Books in recent years and it is clear he is not a theologian (unlike Miroslav Volf) and certainly not a biblical scholar. He is not Christian either although he may be moving in that direction. What he is and for him this is a useful category, is a lapsed Catholic.

'There are no ex-Catholics, only lapsed ones. A lapse, as the light little monosyllable suggests, is a mere temporary aberration, an ephemeral error which can always be retrieved; and even the more ominous sounding ‘excommunication’ can always be undone by a quick bout of repentance. Leaving the Catholic church is as difficult as resigning from the Mafia; for the Church in its wisdom has artfully anticipated such renegacy and created within its ranks the special category of ‘lapsed’, wedged somewhere between saints and clergy.'

I won't give the link because only subscribers can access this.

An an outsider (neither in nor out, just temporarily lapsed) he may have some valuable points to make -- I haven't read his latest book and the Punch article reads as if a cheery sub-editor got hold of it and chopped up certain paragraphs.

--------------------
“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.”
― Muriel Spark

Posts: 499 | From: Africa | Registered: Apr 2012  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Terry Eagleton's view of what Christianity, or indeed Roman Catholicism, is in essence is pretty largely that of the late Herbert McCabe OP. I don't think one could accuse McCabe of pushing forward a view of Christian action not grounded in Christian dogmatics.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
I'm surprised

None of you think what Eagleton says has any merit (besides Anyuta perhaps) ?

His views of the Church are a caricature of the reality and, even worse, he makes Christ bow down to his own political agenda.
What do you believe Christ's political agenda is? ISTM he is slamming the Christian political agenda of the USA and advocating a return to grass roots.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I'm surprised. None of you think what Eagleton says has any merit (besides Anyuta perhaps)?

Well, Eagleton is basically naive concerning how humans function, and in consequence misunderstands the entire "project Jesus". If he is indeed a Marxist, then that's no particular surprise.

Here the body is used against the Body, i.e., helping others in their bodily state is used to argue against the embodiment of faith in the Church. But a truly human faith is embodied Divinity, and all idealistic dreaming about shedding the Body of Christ for the good of Christ will end precisely as the Marxist dream did last century: in a horrible, perverted embodiment that crushes these very dreams.

I'm afraid this is either IngoBese or Catholickese. I don't understand it.

Can you explain it in simpler terms please?

What is "project Jesus" in your opinion?

ISTM Eagleton thinks its about standing up to the oppressed and helping the poor (very synoptic gospelish of course. Isa 61 and the jubilee year and all that - good news to the poor etc.).

What is the function of the church?

You speak of it being about divinity.

But would divinity not outwork itself in the way he claims?

Is this not what Jesus did?

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Terry Eagleton's view of what Christianity, or indeed Roman Catholicism, is in essence is pretty largely that of the late Herbert McCabe OP. I don't think one could accuse McCabe of pushing forward a view of Christian action not grounded in Christian dogmatics.

Thank you for that. An interesting point.

I guess that's kind of where I'm trying to go....works come out of faith....

If works are absent (as Eagleton seems to suggest), is our faith gone?

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

 - Posted      Profile for Beeswax Altar   Email Beeswax Altar   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Christian churches in every part of the world are doing the "works" that Eagleton suggests. Eagleton has a problem with the social conservatism. If you want to get back to grass roots, you'll need to embrace social conservatism just as much as social justice.

Like Zack said, Eagleton is looking into the well and seeing a Jesus and early church he wants to see. He isn't seeing the one described in scripture and the early church fathers. Liberalism of this sort really is the flip side of Protestant Fundamentalism complete with the same weaknesses.

--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967

 - Posted      Profile for SvitlanaV2   Email SvitlanaV2   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

A number of historians and other commentators suggest that churches lost out on an important role when the state began to take over the job of providing for people's physical needs. This stands to reason; people obviously have less 'need' for the church now that the state provides food, education, safe houses for 'fallen women', etc. Churches are now in the business of making up the shortfall or providing niche products, so to speak, rather than offering basic care.

Still, I think it makes little sense for an increasingly secularised culture to demand that churches do more and more. Churches are simply people, but if noone wants to be part of the church anymore then where are these supposely devoted, caring church people supposed to come from? It doesn't make sense. If noone wants to contribute to church funds where's the money going to come from? You can't care for the poor with no money. Well, you can do something, but poor people expect more than good intentions; they need decent food to eat, warm homes, etc. The widow's mite isn't going to get them out of the mess they're in, and they know it. They don't send their kids to Sunday school any more, because these days the state teaches them to read and write, and the other stuff isn't deemed to be very important.

People want 'the church' to do all sorts of things, but they don't want to be part of the church themselves. It's what's called 'vicarious religion'.

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
tclune
Shipmate
# 7959

 - Posted      Profile for tclune   Email tclune   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

A number of historians and other commentators suggest that churches lost out on an important role when the state began to take over the job of providing for people's physical needs. This stands to reason; people obviously have less 'need' for the church now that the state provides food, education, safe houses for 'fallen women', etc. Churches are now in the business of making up the shortfall or providing niche products, so to speak, rather than offering basic care.

Are you serious? Do you mean that the Church isn't able to feed people like it did in Ireland during the potato famine, so people are less attached to it? The reality is that the Church never did take care of enough people to actually provide for the needs of the poor. The state didn't move into this businesss because it wanted to undermine the authority of the Church -- it moved into this busines because no-one else was doing it to any meaningful extent.

--Tom Clune

--------------------
This space left blank intentionally.

Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Liberalism of this sort really is the flip side of Protestant Fundamentalism complete with the same weaknesses.

Which are?

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826

 - Posted      Profile for LutheranChik   Author's homepage   Email LutheranChik   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I just got an e-mail from advocacy group Bread For the World that the GOP's ideas about having faith groups absorb the cost/responsibility even for programs involving food distribution a la "food stamps" for the working poor amount to a burden of $50,000 per faith community in the US. Even given that that's a rather idealogically loaded and arguable statement designed to be a snappy call to arms to supporters -- is it realistic to expect local churches to, in a piecemeal and relatively inefficient way, take back a job that has, since the Great Society here in the US, been done relatively well by government services?

And given the volunteer situations in our churches, even the thriving ones -- is it realistic to expect that we can call up volunteers to help with this new responsibility?

[ 24. April 2012, 14:18: Message edited by: LutheranChik ]

--------------------
Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com

Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Terry Eagleton's view of what Christianity, or indeed Roman Catholicism, is in essence is pretty largely that of the late Herbert McCabe OP. I don't think one could accuse McCabe of pushing forward a view of Christian action not grounded in Christian dogmatics.

Eagleton is not a Christian, much less a RC, whereas McCabe very much was both. And McCabe was perhaps most famous precisely for critiquing a theologian who left the Church, see here (in particular the last quoted paragraph). Finally, there can be little doubt that as far as the RC hierarchy and the institutional Church was concerned, McCabe was operating at the edge of what could still be called "grounded in Christian dogmatics". Just because he was a brilliant theologian, whose writings in my opinion often belong to the best Thomism has produced in recent times, does not mean that he was bullet-proof against shading into heresy and schism.

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I'm afraid this is either IngoBese or Catholickese. I don't understand it. Can you explain it in simpler terms please? What is "project Jesus" in your opinion?

The Church is the Body of Christ. Denying the Church is denying Christ. If I stood in front of you and said "I like your posts, but I don't want to see your ugly face," or "I can deal with your musings, but I cannot abide your physical presence," would you not be insulted? You are not just what is in your head. You are your head, and the rest of your body as well. You are not just a bundle of intellectual thoughts, you are a body. A body that has its own beauty and ugliness, its own functions and place in the world.

The Incarnation, the Divine "project Jesus", destroys the projection of religion into the purely spiritual realm. No, God eats and drinks, and consequently, shits and pisses. God becomes some-body standing in front of you, a tangible reality. And in 1stC Palestine, certainly a smellable reality.

Eagleton, like all idealists, follows the "angelic heresy". He constructs some conceptual Jesus, an über-human ideal, a spiritual being. But Jesus is God Incarnate, and consequently He did exactly the opposite of what the Eagletons of this world want. He created a Body for His faith. And like all bodies, when looked at with unkind "angelic" eyes, it is rather ugly and ridiculous. Look at the Church zygotic: Peter, Paul, the Zebedees... Hardly the stuff of shiny idealism, them.

And two millennia later, that Body of Christ is as faithful as Peter, as patient as Paul, as humble as the Zebedees, etc. And that still offends the shit out of all idealists. And yet they are still wrong. Because to be human is to be embodied, and hence human faith must be embodied. No Church, no Body of Christ, no Jesus. Sorry, you just can't have the heavenly principle without the fat, sweating, farting reality.

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
ISTM Eagleton thinks its about standing up to the oppressed and helping the poor (very synoptic gospelish of course. Isa 61 and the jubilee year and all that - good news to the poor etc.).

Everybody and their dog is for helping the poor and oppressed. At least everybody Christian and their secular dogs are. It is facile to critique the Church for not being ideal. Eagleton himself is not ideal. And if Eagleton were to found an organisation for helping the poor and oppressed, boy, would that turn out to be non-ideal really quick. And if that organisation eventually was in charge of over a billion people wordlwide, hells bells, it would be so terribly anti-ideal that some naive Marxist fool surely would write a stupid book about how the Eagleton institution thoroughly fails the poor and oppressed on all counts.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967

 - Posted      Profile for SvitlanaV2   Email SvitlanaV2   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Has Christianity lost its power today because governments have taken over the role of social security and charity. ?

A number of historians and other commentators suggest that churches lost out on an important role when the state began to take over the job of providing for people's physical needs. This stands to reason; people obviously have less 'need' for the church now that the state provides food, education, safe houses for 'fallen women', etc. Churches are now in the business of making up the shortfall or providing niche products, so to speak, rather than offering basic care.

Are you serious? Do you mean that the Church isn't able to feed people like it did in Ireland during the potato famine, so people are less attached to it? The reality is that the Church never did take care of enough people to actually provide for the needs of the poor. The state didn't move into this businesss because it wanted to undermine the authority of the Church -- it moved into this busines because no-one else was doing it to any meaningful extent.

--Tom Clune

I should have made it clear that I was talking about the English Protestant churches. Other churches in other places have a different history.

I don't know what the RCC establishment did during the Irish famine. I imagine that some priests were very sympathetic. Probably others, higher up the chain, were in cahoots with the British authorities, who certainly weren't all that interested in helping the sufferers. However, some British people, and I'm sure some church congregations, did raise money for the Irish people. They did so without much encouragement from their politicians.

Obviously, leaving this kind of work to 'the church' meant leaving it up to individuals and groups, some of whom were caring and compassionate and some not, to carry out certain work. So some areas or parishes probably had better systems than others. Now that, in the UK at least, the state has taken over, things are more streamlined and there is more uniformity of care, which is a good thing. (However, we still talk about the 'NHS lottery', where people receive better health care in some areas than in others.) Church-run Sunday schools, where poor children learnt how to read, were probably better organised in some areas than others, but now, free education is available all over the UK. (Once again, though, some areas have better state schools than others.)

I'm certainly not arguing that we should somehow turn back the clock. In any case, there are even fewer Christians now, so there's little chance that the churches could improve on their record....

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644

 - Posted      Profile for Beeswax Altar   Email Beeswax Altar   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Liberalism of this sort really is the flip side of Protestant Fundamentalism complete with the same weaknesses.

Which are?
Both liberals and fundamentalists claim to be getting back to the basics. Both also have a view of what they would like the church to be. So, both go looking for that church in the well of history. Both then take the parts of church history that supports what they want and disregard the stuff that doesn't.

To me, this is intellectually dishonest. The Church never was what either liberals or fundamentalists wanted to be. Church history is what it is. Christians should work from the tradition they have received not that which they have invented. Christians living in the present aren't bound to accept every last part of tradition. Christians in the past get a vote not a veto. However, saying they voted in a way they didn't is wrong. The longer a doctrine or practice has been the tradition the more justification Christians should have for rejecting it. The fact ones friends and acquaintances no longer believe something is not remotely a good enough reason for rejecting a doctrine or practice going back centuries. The word of the current big name on television, at the bookstore, or in the pulpit of the local megachurch isn't either.

--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan

Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357

 - Posted      Profile for Justinian   Email Justinian   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The Incarnation, the Divine "project Jesus", destroys the projection of religion into the purely spiritual realm. No, God eats and drinks, and consequently, shits and pisses. God becomes some-body standing in front of you, a tangible reality. And in 1stC Palestine, certainly a smellable reality.

And this is one of the most attractive parts of Christianity.

quote:
Eagleton, like all idealists, follows the "angelic heresy".
I disagree that all idealists go that way, even within the bounds of Christianity. Solely man is as much a Christian heresy as solely divine. And like most heresies tends to be the realm of idealists.

quote:
Everybody and their dog is for helping the poor and oppressed. At least everybody Christian and their secular dogs are.
How I wish the above was true. According to Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church (weekly attendance: 20,000 - and that was not a typo), and author of The Purpose Driven Life (a Christian devotional that's sold 30 million copies), "When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity."

(Note: Credentials given to emphasise that you need a Real True Scotsman definition to claim Rick Warren isn't a Christian.)

--------------------
My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.

Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.

Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I disagree that all idealists go that way, even within the bounds of Christianity. Solely man is as much a Christian heresy as solely divine. And like most heresies tends to be the realm of idealists.

I'm afraid you misunderstand. It is not the precise status of Jesus Himself that concerns me here. Clearly, Eagleton as non-believer would be on the "just a man" side of things, as far as that is concerned. It is about His legacy, what Christ is assumed to have given to the world. And whether they think Jesus was man or God, or both, idealists there invariably dismiss the Body (Church) for some spirit (an abstract notion of Christ's teachings).

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
How I wish the above was true.

Your supposed counter-example isn't one, of course. That discussion is about what means "really helping" the poor and oppressed, not about whether one should do it in the first place. The debate in the West is still totally dominated by Christian concerns. It is still impossible to simply say "I don't care about the poor and oppressed, as long as the poor don't die on my doorstep and the oppression concerns others elsewhere." Even those whose entirely life is grounded on that sort of principle will still in public argue for their policies as if they gave a shit about their fellow man. It remains the done thing in our societies, at least at the level of social habit. This however is not as necessary as we think it is. Political / social dominance merely requires that one supports ones supporters, not ultimately everybody. We will know that out societies have truly left behind Christianity when the public rhetoric follows this simple, brutal fact.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740

 - Posted      Profile for quetzalcoatl   Email quetzalcoatl   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
IngoB

The 'angelic heresy' is a very good phrase, and I think it also applies to some New Age types, who want all of the white light of spirituality, with none of the blood and sweat and shit, as you say.

There is some kind of polarization here between flesh and spirit, which is probably very old; for example, I guess docetism is of this ilk.

--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011  |  IP: Logged
LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826

 - Posted      Profile for LutheranChik   Author's homepage   Email LutheranChik   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
We will know that out societies have truly left behind Christianity when the public rhetoric follows this simple, brutal fact.
But how willing are you to sacrifice the lives of real people upon this altar?

In other words -- if we dismantle the state's social safety net and hand that responsibility over to religious organizations and other voluntary associations, and it turns out that, indeed, we live in a post-Christian world where without the state's intervention hardly anyone will provide the means to help anyone outside the circle of his/her own "clan" -- is it worth it? It seems as if some politicians are quite willing to sacrifice real people's lives for the sake of upholding a wish-dream abstraction about the desireability of personal responsibility/minimal government.

--------------------
Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com

Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The debate in the West is still totally dominated by Christian concerns. It is still impossible to simply say "I don't care about the poor and oppressed, as long as the poor don't die on my doorstep and the oppression concerns others elsewhere." Even those whose entirely life is grounded on that sort of principle will still in public argue for their policies as if they gave a shit about their fellow man. It remains the done thing in our societies, at least at the level of social habit.

Actually the "done thing" is what you're doing here, pretending that such sentiments are expressed, even when the speaker is literally arguing in favor of letting the poor die in the streets. Antonin Scalia and Ron Paul (who got applause for saying so!) are two recent American examples that come to mind.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The 'angelic heresy' is a very good phrase, and I think it also applies to some New Age types, who want all of the white light of spirituality, with none of the blood and sweat and shit, as you say.

It's not my invention, though I cannot recall where I've picked this up from. "Angelism" is even in Merriam-Webster.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967

 - Posted      Profile for SvitlanaV2   Email SvitlanaV2   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by opaWim:

Does anybody really have a definitive, and simple, explanation for the decline of Christianity in say Western-Europe?

I shouldn't think it's 'simple'! Historians and sociologists are still absorbed by the issue.

Western Europe is a large area with many different histories, systems and contributing factors, so it's not easy to establish a single theory for the whole region. People here have jokingly referred to 'liberal Christianity' as the culprit, but what did liberal Christianity mean in Catholic France before or after the Revolution? And what has that to do with developments in Nonconformity in Edwardian England, or anywhere else?

One historian I came across said three basic explanations had been given for church decline in Great Britain. If I remember rightly, one refers to the decline of spiritual fervour within the churches (this might match up with the complaint about 'liberal Christianity', but it goes deeper than this), the second focuses on wider social and cultural change, and the third focuses on inadequate structural response by the churches (e.g. churches have found it difficult to respond swiftly to growth and decline in population in different areas.)

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Actually the "done thing" is what you're doing here, pretending that such sentiments are expressed, even when the speaker is literally arguing in favor of letting the poor die in the streets. Antonin Scalia and Ron Paul (who got applause for saying so!) are two recent American examples that come to mind.

Firstly, your statement about me is an obvious falsehood. Whatever one may think about Rick Warren's ideas (to which Justinian linked, and on which I commented), he phrased them as something ultimately helping people. He was certainly not "literally arguing in favor of letting the poor die in the streets," and hence I was not pretending when pointing this out.

Secondly, I've not the slightest clue what Scalia / Paul may or may not have said. You apparently assume that everybody in this world is following US politics in all details. I assure you that that is not the case. Given that one falsehood increases the likelihood of another, I would suggest that you link to the statements from these gentlemen that are "literally arguing in favor of letting the poor die in the streets."

But perhaps all this is just a bit too subtle for you. Just because a policy will inevitably lead to the poor dying in the streets does not mean that the person proposing this policy is "literally arguing in favor of" this happening. Reasonable deductions one may make from the content of a speech are not necessarily identical to the argument of the speech itself. Indeed, the actual point I made was precisely that such inhumane / un-Christian policies are still being sold by establishing the illusion of humane / Christian outcomes. A particular kind of hypocrisy may well end up being the last vestige of Christianity in the West.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513

 - Posted      Profile for Alogon   Email Alogon   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
One historian I came across said three basic explanations had been given for church decline in Great Britain. If I remember rightly, one refers to the decline of spiritual fervour within the churches

Someone forgot to mention the jingoism of the church during World War I. The problem was not too little fervour, but too much fervour about the wrong things. It is a lesson that some parts of the church in the U.S. have yet to learn, and they'll probably do so the hard way.

Quoting Rick Warren:

quote:
The only way to get people out of poverty is J-O-B-S. Create jobs. To create wealth, not to subsidize wealth. When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity.
(emphasis mine). Maybe he's actually speaking against corporate welfare and trickle-up economics, whatya think? Is this possible?

The whole Mother Earth column is a little too brief and pat to get a reliable idea of anyone's position. But I have to agree with the blogger. The economy doesn't always create enough jobs such that a hardworking person can sustain him or herself, let alone a family. Why is the laborer not worthy of his hire? If what matters is the dignity of work (as the Rev. Mr. Warren implies) rather than the wealth creation of work-- well, the Soviets understood this very well. The streets of Moscow were spotless because of all the babushkas wielding brooms for a living. Why isn't Warren a socialist, then?

--------------------
Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.

Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967

 - Posted      Profile for SvitlanaV2   Email SvitlanaV2   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Someone forgot to mention the jingoism of the church during World War I. The problem was not too little fervour, but too much fervour about the wrong things. It is a lesson that some parts of the church in the U.S. have yet to learn, and they'll probably do so the hard way.

Hmmm, yes. WWI actually had a profoundly negative effect on Christian practice in the UK, so I've read. WWII was also problematic. The clergy had hoped that war would spark off a renewed religiosity, but this doesn't seem to have happened. Or if it did, it didn't last long.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
tclune
Shipmate
# 7959

 - Posted      Profile for tclune   Email tclune   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Quoting Rick Warren:

quote:
The only way to get people out of poverty is J-O-B-S. Create jobs. To create wealth, not to subsidize wealth. When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity.
(emphasis mine). Maybe he's actually speaking against corporate welfare and trickle-up economics, whatya think? Is this possible?

No. Anyone who would have a problem with that quote is brain-dead. I'm not a fan of Rev. Warren's, but the idea that unemployed people need a job is one held by every person on the face of the planet AFAICS. Turning that into something dark and nefarious is a creative act, indeed.

--Tom Clune

--------------------
This space left blank intentionally.

Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513

 - Posted      Profile for Alogon   Email Alogon   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
No. Anyone who would have a problem with that quote is brain-dead. I'm not a fan of Rev. Warren's, but the idea that unemployed people need a job is one held by every person on the face of the planet AFAICS. Turning that into something dark and nefarious is a creative act, indeed.

Thanks for the reassurance. How could I have entertained such sacrilege? Of course Rick Warren would never be so dark and nefarious as to breath a word against corporate welfare and trickle-up economics. [Two face]

[ 24. April 2012, 17:52: Message edited by: Alogon ]

--------------------
Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.

Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Secondly, I've not the slightest clue what Scalia / Paul may or may not have said. You apparently assume that everybody in this world is following US politics in all details. I assure you that that is not the case. Given that one falsehood increases the likelihood of another, I would suggest that you link to the statements from these gentlemen that are "literally arguing in favor of letting the poor die in the streets."

Ask and you shall receive. Here's Justice Scalia questioning whether anyone should be obligated to provide medical care for those who can't afford it.

quote:
GENERAL VERRILLI: No. It's because you're going -- in the health care market, you're going into the market without the ability to pay for what you get, getting the health care service anyway as a result of the social norms that allow -- that -- to which we've obligated ourselves so that people get health care.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, don't obligate yourself to that. Why -- you know?

GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, I can't imagine that that -- that the Commerce Clause would -- would forbid Congress from taking into account this deeply embedded social norm.

JUSTICE SCALIA: You could do it.

In short, Scalia sees no reason why letting people die in the streets isn't a viable option.

Ron Paul's "let him die" moment was probably the most memorable of his campaign to date, which admittedly isn't saying much. It does seem that Paul is willing to live his principles, though. Or at least let his close associates die for them.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged



Pages in this thread: 1  2 
 
Post new thread  Post a reply Close thread   Feature thread   Move thread   Delete thread Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
 - Printer-friendly view
Go to:

Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement

© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0

 
follow ship of fools on twitter
buy your ship of fools postcards
sip of fools mugs from your favourite nautical website
 
 
  ship of fools