Background for _Vineland_?

[Paul Mackin]

On 5/23/2012 7:45 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
> 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...

It's my understanding that matters the Pope speaks ex cathedra and 
therefore infallibly about aren't ones most modern people care about 
anyway. Who cares about the Immaculate Conception--that the Blessed 
Mother (our Yashmeen some would have it) was conceived without the stain 
of Original Sin, or that when her natural life on earth was over she was 
Assumed body and soul into heaven. A few might care. Rick Santorum 
maybe, and possibly Justice Scalia, but name me many others.

The best way to think about Papal Infallibility is as part of a grand 
Medieval Pageant, old guys prancing around in women's dresses Gregorian 
chanting away into the night, much of the time off key. Think of it like 
being a member of a jousting club, or participating, say, in a Civil War 
reenactment. It's a tradition. Quite harmless.

I'm just talking about Papal Infallibility, not ordinary Church 
pronouncements on political, social, and health insurance issues. These 
can be bad business, though sometimes are on the side of the Angels.

P


> .
> 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.
>