Background for _Vineland_?

[alice wellintown]

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 6:50 AM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> alice wellintown wrote:
>
>> In any event, infallibility is not a dogma any modern person should
>> have serious objection to
>
> ...because...??? (because one isn't supposed to take it literally?)

One can or not. It, like so much in religion and art involves koans
and paradoxes and mysteries and mage eye/ick. We may study it or live
by it or not. We may argue free will and the Fall, but we needn't fall
down the rabbits hole, though, as Alice, I'm partial to rabbits so...
.
Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, gives good advice on this:

If we shadows have offended, / Think but this, and all is mended, /
That you have but slumber'd here / While these visions did appear. /
And this weak and idle theme, / No more yielding but a dream, /
Gentles, do not reprehend: / If you pardon we will mend. / Else the
Puck a liar call. / Give me your hands, if we be friends, / And Robin
shall restore amends.



>
>>on moral or ethical grounds. On political
>> grounds, yes.
>>
>
> but wait, isn't politics grounded in morals and ethics?  (-:

Grounded. Muddied. Politics, Aristotle sez, is an art we must master
so it won't master all the rest. That anti-intellectualism and
anti-myth-ism are fingers in the same fist.
>
>
>> The history of Anti-Catholicism in America is worth reading.
>
> oh yeah, the anti-catholics are even worse than the catholics...

not to mention the anti christs and anti bodies or puritans. Are they
not the pilgrim fathers of most us orphans. Well, the ugly child has
no father, not even in America the beautiful.

>
> Darn, I ought to write an essay on this!  egads...
> I - religion as story and appreciation of story
> II - religion as text and interpretation of text
> III - religion as propagator of moral suasion
> IV - religion as agent of urging the Golden Rule on folk
> IV - religion as proponent of forgiveness
> V - to the extent a church uses or threatens force it is no longer a
> church but a state
> VI - to the extent a church engages in any kind of competition, it is
> no longer a church but a sport

You messed up your outline. V and VI are not parallel,  Subordinated
nor coordinated. Submit a ruff draft to bark at the moon and wheel
turn it into a walrus or a carpenter.