Maybe your thought is that it not intellectually respectable to hold any articles of faith. Everything must be explored and explicable. Now, this won't do. Everyone has lots of beliefs, including, I would guess for most of us, the most important ones in our lives, that we hold as dogma, immune from revision for practical purposes. Nor can it be otherwise: we will never get anywhere if we are always starting over from first principles. Scientists don't worry about the problem of induction. Marxists don't question the revolutionary potential of the working class. Both of these things are in fact highly debatable. Why should the mysteries of the Church be held to a higher standard. But even with regard to some requirement that ones basic beliefs be analysed, etc., the Church has theologians who do this, although most people are not interested in their work. --jks
In a message dated Thu, 21 Sep 2000 11:43:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Christopher Susi" <chris at susi.net> writes:
<<
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Charles Brown
> Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 2:34 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Exorcist
>
>
>
> >>> JKSCHW at aol.com 09/20/00 10:37PM >>>As for the actual
> rationality of believing in the literal truth of Catholic
> dogma, it's not supposed to be rational. The mysteries of the Church are
> _mysteries_; we're not supposed to get them. Is it irrational to
> accept a
> faith that has mysteries?
If a 'belief' is based in mystery, then isn't 'faith' necessary inorder to sustain the belief? Kind of some circular logic here. More-so, arn't we dealing with a pseudo-science, one that just accepts the mysteries as is without an attempt to explore or explain them? Rather than attempting to discover the truth they simply hold the belief as is, present arguments that are nearly impossible to prove wrong, then tell others they will hold their beliefs and defend them violently to the death until they are proven wrong.
"You...you are the one true messiah!" "I am not" "Yes you are, and I should know! I followed four this year."
- Monty Python's Life of Brian
> I am not so sure. I think quantum
> physics is true,
> and I once could do the maths (can't any more), so I can tell
> you, you want
> real mysteries, check out quantum physics. Or indeed, Marxism, with the
> transmogrifications of Value that have been getting some play
> here lately,
> the faith in the planned rational society, and the conviction that the
> working class Messiah will rise to bring on that glorious day. I am not
> making fun of Marxsim any more than I am making fun of quantum
> mechanics. My
> point is rather just that there is a lot of mystery and faith in
> things even
> irreligious people here accept. Why not Catholicism?
Or any other religion for that matter. Quantum Physics may take faith in unproven theories (anything not yet proven to be consistently reliable) however they will take great pains to find methods to prove those theories true or false. Catholics have been using the same damn book for 2000 years as the end-all-be-all of truth in this world. To make matters worse, you can't revise the damn thing (oh I'm gunna smoke a turd in hell for that) because the last few pages say you're going to go to hell if you do.
>
> CB: Perhaps a way to differentiate science and religion, is that
> for science there are an infinity of unknowns, but nothing is
> unknowable in principle. For religion, Christianity anyway, some
> things are unknowable in principle.
There is a god, or there isn't a god. If god came down and showed himself in all his glory to the world, I think that question would pretty much be answered and very knowable. He hasn't. So relious zealouts continue to run around saying "There is a god, prove me wrong" and go around blowing up buildings, killing folks who believe in a different god, and ringing my damn doorbell for donations (worst offense of 'em all).
>>