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Britain
Not in my name
2005-04-08
Polly Toynbee makes an ass of herself again and reveals the teeny-tiny dimensions of her soul...

How dare Tony Blair genuflect on our behalf before the corpse of a man whose edicts killed millions?
Polly Toynbee
With the clash of two state funerals and a wedding, unreason is in full flood this week. Yet again, rationalists who thought they understood this secular, sceptical age have been shocked at the coverage from Rome.
Because they only talk to each other, they're surprised that the rest of the world has an entirely different thought process. As usual, when the rest of the world doesn't agree with them it's the rest of the world that's wrong...
The BBC airwaves have disgraced themselves. The Mail went mad with its front-page headlines, "Safe in Heaven" and the next day "Amen". Even this august organ, which sprang from the loins of nonconformist dissent, astounded many readers with its broad acres of Pope reverencing. Poor old Prince Rainier of that squalid little tax haven missed his full Hello! death rites through bad timing.
Bad timing on his part. He should have lasted a little longer before pegging out, though I understand he wasn't a bad sort...
The arcane flummery brings forth dusty academics in Vaticanology, the Act of Settlement and laws of Monegasque succession. These pantomimes of power fascinate in their quaintness, but they signify nothing beyond momentary frisson.
I try to keep all my frissons momentary...
The millions pouring into Rome (pray there is no Mecca-style disaster) herald no resurgence of Catholicism.
No, it's a reminder that the Catholicism is there, all around us, just not a spectacular phenomenon. People like Polly only notice phenomena when there's a crowd.
The devout are there, but this is essentially a Diana moment, a Queen Mother's catafalque. People queue to join great public spectacles, hoping it's a tell-my-grandchildren event. Communing with public emotion is easy now travel is cheap. These things are driven by rolling, unctuous television telling people a great event is unfolding, focusing on the few hysterics in tears and not the many who come to feel their pain.
So turn your teevee off. Read a book or go to a movie. Most of us can only take so much of the 24/7 coverage — for one thing, it repeats itself over and over. But people are interested, even if Polly's not and even if I'm only moderately interested in the mechanics of it all. The funeral's tomorrow, and they'll have elected another Pope in a week or so and then we'll all go back to 24/7 coverage of the Michael Jackson trial.
Bill Clinton had it right yesterday: "The man knows how to build a crowd."
He was referring to the Pope? I guess if you have to die of old age to build a crowd that's one way to do it. I'm not too sure why you'd want to, or what you'd do with it once you've built it, at least that way...
Curiously, the celebrity nature of this event - a must-do for 200 world leaders - signifies the opposite of what it seems. It shows how far people have forgotten what the church really is, how profoundly ignorant and indifferent they have become to history and theology. Hell, he was just a good ol' boy, wore white, blessed folk, prayed for peace - why not?
Large numbers of people consider him to have been a great and a good man, both of which are worthy of our admiration and even reverence. Our age produces few enough of both, and usually not in the same person.
In Europe church attendance is plummeting, even in Poland, the heart of reactionary Catholicism. Here the young are clueless about the most basic Christian stories. How about the DJ who opened his show with "Happy Good Friday!" Art galleries now need to explain the agony in the garden, the raising of Lazarus and even the annunciation. In surveys, half the population couldn't say what Easter meant. It is precisely this insouciant ignorance that lets people emote with the flow; they know not what they do.
I suspect people have always been much like that. I also suspect Polly's a condescending twit.
The Vatican is not a charming Monaco for tourists collecting Ruritanian stamps or gazing at past glories in the Sistine Chapel. It is a modern, potent force for cruelty and hypocrisy.
Here comes the carping...
It has weak temporal power, so George Bush can safely pray at the corpse of the man who criticised the Iraq war and capital punishment; it simply didn't matter as the Pope never made a serious issue of it or ordered the US church to take strong action.
It wasn't his job to do so, and doing so would have weakened the Church. Most of the Middle Ages was spent working out where the Pope's spiritual power ended and his temporal power began. We've moved considerably beyond the stage where the Pope claimed to be the ultimate temporal authority in the Christian world. We've moved beyond the point where doing the Bell, Book, and Candle thing is even feasible anymore. The Pope doesn't have any temporal power. He's a spiritual leader. The Papal States have been gone for 150 years. Polly's just mad because the Pope also made plain his disapproval — on spiritual grounds, we might add — of Communism and that it did collapse, in part because of that disapproval.
The Vatican's deeper power is in its personal authority over 1.3 billion worshippers, which is strongest over the poorest, most helpless devotees. With its ban on condoms the church has caused the death of millions of Catholics and others in areas dominated by Catholic missionaries, in Africa and right across the world.
Church doctrine is against using birth control. It boils down to forming an opinion on right and wrong, concepts which are slippery enough in today's world. It retains those quaint notions of sin — both venial and mortal — and penance and redemption. People who adhere to the Church's teachings on the subject of fidelity don't have much to worry about in the area of AIDS. Keeping one's pants on outside the conjugal bedroom isn't viewed as being quite the problem AIDS is. But if you're going to be in the club you should be prepared to play be all the rules, not just the ones you like.
In countries where 50% are infected, millions of very young Aids orphans are today's immediate victims of the curia.
Or the immediate victims of Pop doinking the local hookers and bringing a little present home for Mom...
Refusing support to all who offer condoms, spreading the lie that the Aids virus passes easily through microscopic holes in condoms - this irresponsibility is beyond all comprehension.
Maybe beyond Polly's comprehension. I can grasp it pretty easily.
This is said often, even in this unctuous week - and yet still it does not permeate. He was a good, caring man nevertheless, they say, as if it were a minor aberration. But genuflecting before this corpse is scarcely different to parading past Lenin: they both put extreme ideology before human life and happiness, at unimaginable human cost.
Because Polly doesn't agree with it, it's extreme.
How dare our prime minister go there in our name to give the Vatican our approval for this?
Probably because JPII was a world leader, revered by billions, to include non-Catholics. Probably as a gesture of respect not only to JPII, but also to the world's Catholics.
Will he think of Africa when on his knees today? I trust history will some day express astonishment at moral outrage wasted on sexual trivia while papal celebrity and charisma cloaked this great Vatican crime.
I'm not sure where the sexual trivia came from. Is she referring to Michael Jackson? Am I too tired this evening to follow elementary arguments? Or is she not making any sense?
The editor of the Catholic Herald was somewhat Jesuitical when I argued with him in a BBC studio yesterday. He asked how the Pope could be blamed when all the church calls for is sex within marriage and abstinence.
To me that's a pretty sensible question...
But abstinence and celibacy are not the human condition.
Abstinence and celibacy were the human condition prior to the advent of the birth control pill. Our parents were much more virtuous in their youth in that respect, if only because they were always dealing with live rounds. And Polly, probably as old as I am, should be able to remember those thrilling days of yesteryear...
If the Vatican learned anything about humanity, it would humbly meditate on 4,450 Catholic clergy in the US alone accused of molesting children since 1950, and no doubt as many in Catholic churches elsewhere still in denial. The scale of it is breathtaking yet not at all surprising: most humans are sexual beings. A Vatican edict in the 1960s threatened to excommunicate anyone breaking secrecy on child sex allegations, and guaranteed that ever more children continued to suffer. And within its walls the Vatican shields an American priest from allegations. Still the Vatican turns a blind eye to this most repugnant and damaging of all sexual practices, the suffering little children whose priests come unto them.
She's got a few valid comments, even though they're cheap shots. Most humans are indeed sexual beings. That's why there are more of us with each generation. The fact that we're sexual doesn't mean our sexuality's beyond our control, otherwise we'd be copulating all over the place. It's a sign of civilization to control one's impulses. At the very same time, it's the people on Polly's side of the argument who're in favor of allowing homosexuals to move in on the Boy Scouts, the while pooh-poohing any argument that the presence of significant numbers of pubescent and pre-pubescent young boys — too young to have any experience in fighting off sexual predators — will draw those predators like flies.
Yet at the same time it thunders disapproval of sex in every other more innocent circumstance, blighting the lives of millions with its teaching on gays, divorce, abortion and unrealistic self-denial.
I've known lots of priests who were capable of self-denial. I've known lots of ministers who, though married, managed to avoid having affairs. And not only ministers; people having affairs is still, 50 years after the introduction of the pill, considered scandalous in many circles. Just ask Prince Chuck and Cam. The Church has always discouraged homosexuality. The fact that it's become fashionable in some circles doesn't change the theological assessment of whether it's a sin or not. The Church's disapproval of divorce traces back to Christ's admonishment that "what God hath joined together, let no man put assunder." And if life begins with conception, if that's when the soul comes into existence, then the Church's stance on abortion not only makes sense but is quite principled. You may agree or you may disagree, but those are their opinions. I admire the people who do keep to the rules, myself.
There is no reckoning how many of the world's poorest women have died giving birth to more children than they can survive; contraception is women's true saviour.
Readily available contraception has been a benefit to the world, in my opinion, but it's had side effects that haven't been good for society. Falling birthrates in Europe contribute to much of the tension we see here on Rantburg every day, to whit, the arrival of fresh waves of Vandals, Huns, Visigoths, Gepids and all the other beturbanned new barbarians, trampling over a civilization that's old and deeply rooted but exhausted from slaughtering its finest in the flower of their youth — and not replenishing the supply. Increased sexual activity for recreation is fun, but it also imposes strains on the family. Think on the subject long enough and you can come up with lots of other non-beneficial side effects. On balance, I think it's a good thing, especially since I was young enough to enjoy a few of the benefits in my younger and more single days, but I recognize the down side, too.
In 1971 I interviewed Mother Teresa and asked how she justified letting starving babies be born to die on Calcutta streets for lack of contraception. She said sublimely that every baby entering the world was another soul created in praise of God, even if it lived only a few hours. She was never keen on cures: suffering was a gift of God that enabled those who cared for the afflicted to demonstrate their love. She was beatified by John Paul II for their shared religious mania. Those who met them talk of an aura of love, power, listening and intensity. But goodness is in doing good; good intent is no excuse for murderous error.
The babies were there. Mother Teresa was there. But she wasn't there to hand out rubbers; she was there to comfort the halt and the infirm. She was dealing with the effects — cleaning up a part of the mess — not addressing the cause.
Today's saccharine sanctimony will try to whiten the sepulchre of yet another Pope whose obscurantist faith has caused pointless suffering; it is no defence that he was only obeying higher orders.
Sure it is. He was carrying out the will of God as he saw it, agree with him on all points or not. I'll admit, though, that Polly's Eichmann allusion was more subtle than Ward Churchill's, though just barely. There's a rational body of thought behind the Church's teachings. Just because Polly disagrees doesn't make it wrong. And I'll take the Pope over the Islamic holy men sending people out to explode any time.
At the funeral will be a convocation of mullahs, rabbis and all the other medieval faiths that increasingly conspire together against modernity.
At least Polly's catholic in her condemnation of all religions. But even us agnostics recognize the fact that the concepts of right and wrong are deeply rooted in religion, in man's attempt to decipher the will of God. Without a belief in a higher being, you're left with whatever feels right. Abortion, homosexuality, and promiscuity feel right to Polly, even though society's struggled to control them through the ages.
Islamic groups are sternly warning the Vatican to stand firm against liberal influences on homosexuality, abortion, contraception and the ordination of women. What is it about religion that unites them all on sex?
They're all against you, Polly. You, personally.
It always expresses itself as disgust for women's bodies, leading to a need to suppress women altogether. Why is controlling women's bodies the shared battle flag of every faith?
I have a great liking for women's bodies, as do most other men. I love to look at them, love to touch them, love to do pleasant things with them. But I suspect that society began organizing itself into what would eventually become civilizations when we stopped being ground monkeys who jumped each other whenever a random female's nether regions turned color and started making rules governing how we formed our families. A big part of that rule making involves reaching agreement on not jumping each other's mates. That imposes certain obligations on the jumpees as well as on the jumpers. I also suspect that if we stop having rules about such things we're eventually going to revert to the ground monkey stage and be replaced by more fastidious giant cockroaches or something. It's not just an interpretation of Genesis that's rooted in religion, but societal norms.
Disgracefully, the European rich quietly ignore the church's outlandish teachings on contraception without rebelling on behalf of the helpless third-world poor who die for their misplaced faith.
I suspect they find Polly a twit, too. And the helpless third-world poor probably would, as well, if they'd ever heard of her.
Those "civilised" Catholics have as much blood on their hands as the Vatican they support. They are like the Bollinger Bolsheviks who defended the USSR and a murderous ideology that they could do much to change. For today, just remember what lies beneath all this magnificent display.
Polly is Maureen Dowd, without the charisma...

polly.toynbee@guardian.co.uk
Posted by:Fred

#45  I am tired - sorry I rambled and never answered your question.

I guess you could say that inside Christiainty and the Triune God, I am a strong believer in the holy catholic (and Catholic) Church that Jesus established here as His body on earth. Outside the Church, and Christianity, I do not condemn the other paths, but I do believe that mine is the surest one and I should let others know about it so they can choose.

Some give me severe doubts (Islam for one, since it is so violent and demands unthinking literalism), so there I am more inclined to disbelieve. Others, such as Hindu pantheon, is so alien to me that I tend to dismiss it out of hand. And Buddhism above, you can see where I think it leads, but also that I believe it to be worthy and to contain "good" with many paralells to Christianity's truth.

In sum, I believe that there may be many paths, but I also believe that the one held by Christianity in general and (Catholicism in particular) is the only one of which I am sure. The other paths may or may not get you there. And inside the realm of Christianity, Catholicism has the "Interstate Highway" - the most sure, complete and direct route to the destination of salvation.

Outside of Chistianity I am probably best labeled "agnostic" when it comes to those paths and whether or not they lead ultimately to salvation.

This time I really need to go. Zzzzz.. have a good day Rantburg.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:34:32 PM  

#44  To put it simply, my view is that for salvation, the Catholic Church has "the whole pie", compared to other parts of Christianity that have slices missing, and non-Christian religions that may be just a slice in itself.

Buddhism is particularly odd in that it depends on what kind of Buddhism you are looking at. Almost all of them are very non-Theistic, that is it doenst say anything about whether God exists in a monotheistic or polytheistic (e.g. Hindu) way. This is as opposed to atheistic, which positively denys the existence of any god. At their core they make no claims for or against god (indeed to do so coudl be construed as somethign that ties them down), yet the veneration of the Buddha (Gautuma that is) has blown into full-scale reverence that borders on god-worship.

After being an atheist in rebellion as a college kid (severe Objectivist Rand-inista, and I still admire much of Rand's work) I walked the 8-fold path for several years, and in the end, I found it wanting - as a matter of fact, that was the emptiness at the end of the path that led me to Christianity. The great "I Am" was there at the end daring me to recognize Him. It took me years to do so (Im a stubborn SOB). I can hardly condemn anyone that believes but never makes the (final) connection and takes the leap that I did - IMHO it is (was) very difficult seeing the Dharma as incomplete in an orthogonal way, and leaving the Sangha for the Catholic Church. But I believe there is Grace in Buddhism, since it contains noble ideals and a lot of intrinsic "good" (from my personal standpoint), and its quite interesting for that culture in which it was forged, given its "theology" that it is essentially a shortcut on how to escape from the wheel of rebirth.

Look to Thich Nhat Hanh and Thomas Merton for the linkages I walked, although both of them are giants and I'm relatively a pissant by comparison.

Remember - all of the above is not some theologian talking, its just my personal experience during my decades of journey on this earth (so don't think I'm prosetylizing or preaching). I'm not done walking yet, far from it: there is so much to know and so little that I do know, and I am far far from even approaching "good enough", much less "perfect". I'm just glad that my chosen faith allows for and expects human imperfection, because I regularly need forgiveness for my flaws and help in mending them and the damage they do.

And thats all for me, done rambling - time to get some sleep.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:20:03 PM  

#43  Faith is what gets you through in the toughest of spots Or at least it did for me. I pity those like Polly who have their faith placed in man.

We are moral beings even though many of us deny it (myself included up until a few yeaaars ago).

I meditate, and introspect, and pray on my knees, and humble myself before my maker - and I even give it a lot of thought as to why and how I believe the things that I do.

Thats how I get things like I wrote above.

Stop looking at me like that...

What, did you guys think I was just some analytical stone cold spook?
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 5:14:00 AM  

#42  Ah, thats where Christian Mysticism and Zen part ways. Zen may point to the moon, but we know who made both the finger pointing and the moon that it is pointing to.

In actuality, the early Chirstian Desert Fathers & Sisters and their mysticism and contemplative meditations are identical to those in zen, and they came about in 300-600 AD, which predates the Bodhidarma and his journey to China to invent Chi'an (which became Zen when it hit Japan a hundred+ years later).

So despite people thinking Zen is this ancient tradition, Christian contemplative type meditaiton predates it. Why you haven't heard this is that a lot of it was "lost to the Roman Church (and hence western society) when Christianity split east and west, then a lot more was lost when the Moslems boiled out of Arabia and put the Christian Church in the desert to the sword, and burned thier libraries and temples so they could build Mosques on top of them.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 5:09:45 AM  

#41  Now to really bend your head, rework the analogy to be about God rather than a rock.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 4:07:15 AM  

#40  I've been mediatating prior to watching the Pope's funeral - to heck with my Tivo, I should stay up to see him off regardless of how inconvenient to me. Gotta walk the walk you know.

Anyway, looking back, she strikes me as someone who has not moved fully into freedom, and is ignorant of how far she has to go - and is also iognorant of how little she knows. She is living proof that a little knowledge (very little in her case) is a dangerous thing.

She has only gotten into the first part of the first half - the freedom to ignore/disobey rules. She has yet to move into the freedom that comes from obeying rules by your on voltion.

Once you get there, you need to really start looking at what is, not your conceptions of what is, but seeing "with new eyes". Otherwise you will never move past external freedoms and into the freedoms that internalized freedom gives you. And if you are fortunate enough, you can move past the inner room, and get true freedom.

Its like this...

Here is a scene, a real one not a painting, just a place, put it in your mind. All that is in it is a boulder. No grass, no hils, nothing else of note.

A normal person says "Thats a boulder", but unthinkingly doesnt go any further. That is obliviouness - and it where most peopel are - indeed all of us are there in some respect given a matter about which we know nothing - At this point we have very little freedom other than just naming the object. We can either work to get a deeper understanding of the boulder or simply leave.

Polly is at the next point. The point you say that "I am a free being - I can call that a stone or a tree or a buffalo and nothing you can do can stop me from calling it that". But she can never see it as anything other than something that refuses to be what she wants it to be. So she is free in one sense, to be able to verbalize her wants, but not as free as she could be. And she is in self-deception in that she has placed her ego ahead of reality.

The freedom of accepting rules would move her into a stage where she could look at it as a sculptor or miner, for instance. Educating and discplining your mind to know the rules of sculpting or mining, knowing how rock will chip, how ore looks in the rock - and know them so well that you can see through lenses provided by the rules to what the rock can be: that could be a statue of an eagle, or it could be mined to produce gravel, silver ore, and metals. Once you reach this point, you see the statue or the products every time you look at the boulder. You have the freedom to see all the possibilities this boulder can contain, which is far more freedom than just calling it a name and wishing it was something else. You can use your rules to make the rock into something you want. But you still havent gotten to the truth aobut the rock, only to a stage where you can try to change how the rock looks to you, in your own mind.

The third stage is where you start to internalize and see the boulder for what it is. You can climb on it, you sit on it, use a flat spot to hold your picnic lunch. You are finally looking at the rock for itself, and what you can do without trying to make it into something else.

The last stage is where you see it for what it is, a boulder. Not for what you want to call it, nor what you want to make of it, nor for what you want to do with it. It is a rock, it exists and thats what it is - you see the essential truth of it, inside.

Its the last knowing that give you the most freedom - because you are no longer dominated by your efforts of trying to name the boulder, transform the boulder nor use the boulder, but are just setting your relationship to the boulder and seeing it for what it is.

At this point the boulder "just is" and you accept it as part of natural life - you could no longer see it as anything other than the boulder that it is, you have the freedom found in truth - and the truth found in freedom.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 4:06:19 AM  

#39  "Still the Vatican turns a blind eye to this most repugnant and damaging of all sexual practices, the suffering little children whose priests come unto them."

Wrong - this has been addressed repeatedly in the US, and is an ongoing requirement by the Bishops form the Vatican that positive steps must be taken swiftly to stop this from happening, get those preists removed and handed over to the authorities, and purge the Church of those who woudl do such evil.

Apparently Polly has been sleeping the last 5 years.

And as for...

"It always expresses itself as disgust for women's bodies, leading to a need to suppress women altogether. "

Bullpucky. Other than the the Triune God himself, Mary is the most venerated (but not worshipped) people in the Church. Last I looked, Mary was still a woman.

Also, she has obviously NEVER read Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body", which dispells about 98% of her hate-filled tirade against religion.

I challenge her to read that, and to talk with a truly non-prejudging mind to Women of the Third Millineum http://www.wttm.org/.

As one of the Vatican documents on Human Sexuality (much of it authored by JP2) says:

Man is called to love and to self-giving in the unity of body and spirit. Femininity and masculinity are complementary gifts, through which human sexuality is an integrating part of the concrete capacity for love which God has inscribed in man and woman. "Sexuality is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. The human body, with its sex, and its masculinity and femininity, seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and procreation, as in the whole natural order, but includes right 'from the beginning' the 'nuptial' attribute, that is, the capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift and — by means of this gift — fulfils the very meaning of being and existence".

Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being "very good", when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and "male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving. The relationship between a man and a woman is essentially a relationship of love: "Sexuality, oriented, elevated and integrated by love acquires truly human quality". When such love exists in marriage, self-giving expresses, through the body, the complementarity and totality of the gift. Married love thus becomes a power which enriches persons and makes them grow and, at the same time, it contributes to building up the civilization of love.

...

But when the sense and meaning of gift is lacking in sexuality, a "civilization of things and not of persons" takes over, "a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use, woman can become an object for man, children a hindrance to parents...".

...

Polly's very logic takes her to that place where peopela re objects and sex is juse a biological function, no higher than an animal. Totalitarianism lurks at the end of that path, using people as a means to your ends.

Polly probably is so blind to her own hatred that she may not even realize what a dead end road she is speeding down with a brick in the accelerator.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:01:35 AM  

#38  Polly is an idiot.

The Church starts with a statment: God exists and loves us. From that it is a given that Life Matters. And all the contraception policies and teachings, the teachings on euthansia, the teachings on human dignity, the teachings on social justice, all of that flows neccesarily. Its a shame you dont go any further than sophist arguments that are underpinned by the ugly hatred that you show in your writings.

Polly, you doent work from first causes, switching effect for cause, and treating symptom and not the source. You make so many severe errors its hard to weed them all out without writing a 20 page post.

Extramarital sex (which by its nature includes homosexual sex and prostitution) and needles shared in drug abuse are responsible for the vast source of AID, not the lack of condoms. Its evolution at work. If you can control yourself and not rut like a beast in heat, you live. If not, you die. The old Catholic saw about "chaste by your station" rings true as a lifesaving rule.

Polly, its fairly simple, even someone as simpleminded as you. Act liek a moral being and you will live. Act liek a "rationalist" moron and let your hedonism drive you, and you will die.

Sorry Polly, no cracker for you.

Remember Polly, atheists like you fueled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot by refusing to recognize what John Paull II did: Moral choices drive life and death in this world. To ignore them is to reduce humanity to the status of a beast and allow for philosophical support of his enslavement and abuse.

So how does if feel to be nothing more than a piece of sentient meat, no better than a cow Polly? Because that is what lurks you at the end of your philosophical path; Mr Neitsche and gibbet await you there.

Or you can turn and see why Christ's church continues to exist and flourish in the world outside your little self-centered sphere, has done so for 20 centuries, and will continue to do so.

Its up to you, but imagine your surprise when you find out there is a God and he is your judge. Good luck with that. I know which side of the chasm I want to be on.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 12:34:00 AM  

#37  I am tired - sorry I rambled and never answered your question.

I guess you could say that inside Christiainty and the Triune God, I am a strong believer in the holy catholic (and Catholic) Church that Jesus established here as His body on earth. Outside the Church, and Christianity, I do not condemn the other paths, but I do believe that mine is the surest one and I should let others know about it so they can choose.

Some give me severe doubts (Islam for one, since it is so violent and demands unthinking literalism), so there I am more inclined to disbelieve. Others, such as Hindu pantheon, is so alien to me that I tend to dismiss it out of hand. And Buddhism above, you can see where I think it leads, but also that I believe it to be worthy and to contain "good" with many paralells to Christianity's truth.

In sum, I believe that there may be many paths, but I also believe that the one held by Christianity in general and (Catholicism in particular) is the only one of which I am sure. The other paths may or may not get you there. And inside the realm of Christianity, Catholicism has the "Interstate Highway" - the most sure, complete and direct route to the destination of salvation.

Outside of Chistianity I am probably best labeled "agnostic" when it comes to those paths and whether or not they lead ultimately to salvation.

This time I really need to go. Zzzzz.. have a good day Rantburg.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:34:32 PM  

#36  To put it simply, my view is that for salvation, the Catholic Church has "the whole pie", compared to other parts of Christianity that have slices missing, and non-Christian religions that may be just a slice in itself.

Buddhism is particularly odd in that it depends on what kind of Buddhism you are looking at. Almost all of them are very non-Theistic, that is it doenst say anything about whether God exists in a monotheistic or polytheistic (e.g. Hindu) way. This is as opposed to atheistic, which positively denys the existence of any god. At their core they make no claims for or against god (indeed to do so coudl be construed as somethign that ties them down), yet the veneration of the Buddha (Gautuma that is) has blown into full-scale reverence that borders on god-worship.

After being an atheist in rebellion as a college kid (severe Objectivist Rand-inista, and I still admire much of Rand's work) I walked the 8-fold path for several years, and in the end, I found it wanting - as a matter of fact, that was the emptiness at the end of the path that led me to Christianity. The great "I Am" was there at the end daring me to recognize Him. It took me years to do so (Im a stubborn SOB). I can hardly condemn anyone that believes but never makes the (final) connection and takes the leap that I did - IMHO it is (was) very difficult seeing the Dharma as incomplete in an orthogonal way, and leaving the Sangha for the Catholic Church. But I believe there is Grace in Buddhism, since it contains noble ideals and a lot of intrinsic "good" (from my personal standpoint), and its quite interesting for that culture in which it was forged, given its "theology" that it is essentially a shortcut on how to escape from the wheel of rebirth.

Look to Thich Nhat Hanh and Thomas Merton for the linkages I walked, although both of them are giants and I'm relatively a pissant by comparison.

Remember - all of the above is not some theologian talking, its just my personal experience during my decades of journey on this earth (so don't think I'm prosetylizing or preaching). I'm not done walking yet, far from it: there is so much to know and so little that I do know, and I am far far from even approaching "good enough", much less "perfect". I'm just glad that my chosen faith allows for and expects human imperfection, because I regularly need forgiveness for my flaws and help in mending them and the damage they do.

And thats all for me, done rambling - time to get some sleep.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:20:03 PM  

#35  Faith is what gets you through in the toughest of spots Or at least it did for me. I pity those like Polly who have their faith placed in man.

We are moral beings even though many of us deny it (myself included up until a few yeaaars ago).

I meditate, and introspect, and pray on my knees, and humble myself before my maker - and I even give it a lot of thought as to why and how I believe the things that I do.

Thats how I get things like I wrote above.

Stop looking at me like that...

What, did you guys think I was just some analytical stone cold spook?
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 5:14:00 AM  

#34  Ah, thats where Christian Mysticism and Zen part ways. Zen may point to the moon, but we know who made both the finger pointing and the moon that it is pointing to.

In actuality, the early Chirstian Desert Fathers & Sisters and their mysticism and contemplative meditations are identical to those in zen, and they came about in 300-600 AD, which predates the Bodhidarma and his journey to China to invent Chi'an (which became Zen when it hit Japan a hundred+ years later).

So despite people thinking Zen is this ancient tradition, Christian contemplative type meditaiton predates it. Why you haven't heard this is that a lot of it was "lost to the Roman Church (and hence western society) when Christianity split east and west, then a lot more was lost when the Moslems boiled out of Arabia and put the Christian Church in the desert to the sword, and burned thier libraries and temples so they could build Mosques on top of them.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 5:09:45 AM  

#33  Now to really bend your head, rework the analogy to be about God rather than a rock.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 4:07:15 AM  

#32  I've been mediatating prior to watching the Pope's funeral - to heck with my Tivo, I should stay up to see him off regardless of how inconvenient to me. Gotta walk the walk you know.

Anyway, looking back, she strikes me as someone who has not moved fully into freedom, and is ignorant of how far she has to go - and is also iognorant of how little she knows. She is living proof that a little knowledge (very little in her case) is a dangerous thing.

She has only gotten into the first part of the first half - the freedom to ignore/disobey rules. She has yet to move into the freedom that comes from obeying rules by your on voltion.

Once you get there, you need to really start looking at what is, not your conceptions of what is, but seeing "with new eyes". Otherwise you will never move past external freedoms and into the freedoms that internalized freedom gives you. And if you are fortunate enough, you can move past the inner room, and get true freedom.

Its like this...

Here is a scene, a real one not a painting, just a place, put it in your mind. All that is in it is a boulder. No grass, no hils, nothing else of note.

A normal person says "Thats a boulder", but unthinkingly doesnt go any further. That is obliviouness - and it where most peopel are - indeed all of us are there in some respect given a matter about which we know nothing - At this point we have very little freedom other than just naming the object. We can either work to get a deeper understanding of the boulder or simply leave.

Polly is at the next point. The point you say that "I am a free being - I can call that a stone or a tree or a buffalo and nothing you can do can stop me from calling it that". But she can never see it as anything other than something that refuses to be what she wants it to be. So she is free in one sense, to be able to verbalize her wants, but not as free as she could be. And she is in self-deception in that she has placed her ego ahead of reality.

The freedom of accepting rules would move her into a stage where she could look at it as a sculptor or miner, for instance. Educating and discplining your mind to know the rules of sculpting or mining, knowing how rock will chip, how ore looks in the rock - and know them so well that you can see through lenses provided by the rules to what the rock can be: that could be a statue of an eagle, or it could be mined to produce gravel, silver ore, and metals. Once you reach this point, you see the statue or the products every time you look at the boulder. You have the freedom to see all the possibilities this boulder can contain, which is far more freedom than just calling it a name and wishing it was something else. You can use your rules to make the rock into something you want. But you still havent gotten to the truth aobut the rock, only to a stage where you can try to change how the rock looks to you, in your own mind.

The third stage is where you start to internalize and see the boulder for what it is. You can climb on it, you sit on it, use a flat spot to hold your picnic lunch. You are finally looking at the rock for itself, and what you can do without trying to make it into something else.

The last stage is where you see it for what it is, a boulder. Not for what you want to call it, nor what you want to make of it, nor for what you want to do with it. It is a rock, it exists and thats what it is - you see the essential truth of it, inside.

Its the last knowing that give you the most freedom - because you are no longer dominated by your efforts of trying to name the boulder, transform the boulder nor use the boulder, but are just setting your relationship to the boulder and seeing it for what it is.

At this point the boulder "just is" and you accept it as part of natural life - you could no longer see it as anything other than the boulder that it is, you have the freedom found in truth - and the truth found in freedom.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 4:06:19 AM  

#31  "Still the Vatican turns a blind eye to this most repugnant and damaging of all sexual practices, the suffering little children whose priests come unto them."

Wrong - this has been addressed repeatedly in the US, and is an ongoing requirement by the Bishops form the Vatican that positive steps must be taken swiftly to stop this from happening, get those preists removed and handed over to the authorities, and purge the Church of those who woudl do such evil.

Apparently Polly has been sleeping the last 5 years.

And as for...

"It always expresses itself as disgust for women's bodies, leading to a need to suppress women altogether. "

Bullpucky. Other than the the Triune God himself, Mary is the most venerated (but not worshipped) people in the Church. Last I looked, Mary was still a woman.

Also, she has obviously NEVER read Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body", which dispells about 98% of her hate-filled tirade against religion.

I challenge her to read that, and to talk with a truly non-prejudging mind to Women of the Third Millineum http://www.wttm.org/.

As one of the Vatican documents on Human Sexuality (much of it authored by JP2) says:

Man is called to love and to self-giving in the unity of body and spirit. Femininity and masculinity are complementary gifts, through which human sexuality is an integrating part of the concrete capacity for love which God has inscribed in man and woman. "Sexuality is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. The human body, with its sex, and its masculinity and femininity, seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and procreation, as in the whole natural order, but includes right 'from the beginning' the 'nuptial' attribute, that is, the capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift and — by means of this gift — fulfils the very meaning of being and existence".

Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being "very good", when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and "male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving. The relationship between a man and a woman is essentially a relationship of love: "Sexuality, oriented, elevated and integrated by love acquires truly human quality". When such love exists in marriage, self-giving expresses, through the body, the complementarity and totality of the gift. Married love thus becomes a power which enriches persons and makes them grow and, at the same time, it contributes to building up the civilization of love.

...

But when the sense and meaning of gift is lacking in sexuality, a "civilization of things and not of persons" takes over, "a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use, woman can become an object for man, children a hindrance to parents...".

...

Polly's very logic takes her to that place where peopela re objects and sex is juse a biological function, no higher than an animal. Totalitarianism lurks at the end of that path, using people as a means to your ends.

Polly probably is so blind to her own hatred that she may not even realize what a dead end road she is speeding down with a brick in the accelerator.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:01:35 AM  

#30  Polly is an idiot.

The Church starts with a statment: God exists and loves us. From that it is a given that Life Matters. And all the contraception policies and teachings, the teachings on euthansia, the teachings on human dignity, the teachings on social justice, all of that flows neccesarily. Its a shame you dont go any further than sophist arguments that are underpinned by the ugly hatred that you show in your writings.

Polly, you doent work from first causes, switching effect for cause, and treating symptom and not the source. You make so many severe errors its hard to weed them all out without writing a 20 page post.

Extramarital sex (which by its nature includes homosexual sex and prostitution) and needles shared in drug abuse are responsible for the vast source of AID, not the lack of condoms. Its evolution at work. If you can control yourself and not rut like a beast in heat, you live. If not, you die. The old Catholic saw about "chaste by your station" rings true as a lifesaving rule.

Polly, its fairly simple, even someone as simpleminded as you. Act liek a moral being and you will live. Act liek a "rationalist" moron and let your hedonism drive you, and you will die.

Sorry Polly, no cracker for you.

Remember Polly, atheists like you fueled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot by refusing to recognize what John Paull II did: Moral choices drive life and death in this world. To ignore them is to reduce humanity to the status of a beast and allow for philosophical support of his enslavement and abuse.

So how does if feel to be nothing more than a piece of sentient meat, no better than a cow Polly? Because that is what lurks you at the end of your philosophical path; Mr Neitsche and gibbet await you there.

Or you can turn and see why Christ's church continues to exist and flourish in the world outside your little self-centered sphere, has done so for 20 centuries, and will continue to do so.

Its up to you, but imagine your surprise when you find out there is a God and he is your judge. Good luck with that. I know which side of the chasm I want to be on.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 12:34:00 AM  

#29  Thanks to OS. I appreciate your thoughts. There are several paths, some as you point out less appetizing than others. For me, the path was almost the opposite. Raised more or less christian, I could never could seem to fit, and always felt there was something wrong with me. Some 20 years ago I began reading comparative religioon, and came upon the dharma. It was as though my eyes had opened, I remember feeling that I had finally come upon people who thought the same way I did. For each his own, and good luck to all.
Posted by: Weird Al   2005-04-08 1:52:15 PM  

#28  Of course, the fact that Mr Blair and his wife consider themselves Christians (aren't they Catholic? I thought so....or at least Cherie is, right?) might have something to do with their wanting to be there, Polly?

Yeah, I know, too taxing. Maybe that nice little Nigerian girl you gave money to can explain it to you.

She might also be able to explain that condoms aren't 100% effective, too. Or why only someone stuck in a time warp calls it "safe sex" instead of the newer term "safer sex". Can you make the distinction between the two words, Polly? Didn't think so.

But hey, I'll give Polly some credit. She does have an impressive....thesaurus.

Posted by: Desert Blondie   2005-04-08 1:50:02 PM  

#27  Re Old Spook's mention of Thomas Merton: New Seeds of Contemplation is one of the most difficult books I've ever read, and one of the most profound. An absolute must if you're a Catholic.
Posted by: Steve White   2005-04-08 1:46:26 PM  

#26  Re #18: no.
Posted by: Steve White   2005-04-08 1:44:33 PM  

#25  I am tired - sorry I rambled and never answered your question.

I guess you could say that inside Christiainty and the Triune God, I am a strong believer in the holy catholic (and Catholic) Church that Jesus established here as His body on earth. Outside the Church, and Christianity, I do not condemn the other paths, but I do believe that mine is the surest one and I should let others know about it so they can choose.

Some give me severe doubts (Islam for one, since it is so violent and demands unthinking literalism), so there I am more inclined to disbelieve. Others, such as Hindu pantheon, is so alien to me that I tend to dismiss it out of hand. And Buddhism above, you can see where I think it leads, but also that I believe it to be worthy and to contain "good" with many paralells to Christianity's truth.

In sum, I believe that there may be many paths, but I also believe that the one held by Christianity in general and (Catholicism in particular) is the only one of which I am sure. The other paths may or may not get you there. And inside the realm of Christianity, Catholicism has the "Interstate Highway" - the most sure, complete and direct route to the destination of salvation.

Outside of Chistianity I am probably best labeled "agnostic" when it comes to those paths and whether or not they lead ultimately to salvation.

This time I really need to go. Zzzzz.. have a good day Rantburg.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:34:32 PM  

#24  To put it simply, my view is that for salvation, the Catholic Church has "the whole pie", compared to other parts of Christianity that have slices missing, and non-Christian religions that may be just a slice in itself.

Buddhism is particularly odd in that it depends on what kind of Buddhism you are looking at. Almost all of them are very non-Theistic, that is it doenst say anything about whether God exists in a monotheistic or polytheistic (e.g. Hindu) way. This is as opposed to atheistic, which positively denys the existence of any god. At their core they make no claims for or against god (indeed to do so coudl be construed as somethign that ties them down), yet the veneration of the Buddha (Gautuma that is) has blown into full-scale reverence that borders on god-worship.

After being an atheist in rebellion as a college kid (severe Objectivist Rand-inista, and I still admire much of Rand's work) I walked the 8-fold path for several years, and in the end, I found it wanting - as a matter of fact, that was the emptiness at the end of the path that led me to Christianity. The great "I Am" was there at the end daring me to recognize Him. It took me years to do so (Im a stubborn SOB). I can hardly condemn anyone that believes but never makes the (final) connection and takes the leap that I did - IMHO it is (was) very difficult seeing the Dharma as incomplete in an orthogonal way, and leaving the Sangha for the Catholic Church. But I believe there is Grace in Buddhism, since it contains noble ideals and a lot of intrinsic "good" (from my personal standpoint), and its quite interesting for that culture in which it was forged, given its "theology" that it is essentially a shortcut on how to escape from the wheel of rebirth.

Look to Thich Nhat Hanh and Thomas Merton for the linkages I walked, although both of them are giants and I'm relatively a pissant by comparison.

Remember - all of the above is not some theologian talking, its just my personal experience during my decades of journey on this earth (so don't think I'm prosetylizing or preaching). I'm not done walking yet, far from it: there is so much to know and so little that I do know, and I am far far from even approaching "good enough", much less "perfect". I'm just glad that my chosen faith allows for and expects human imperfection, because I regularly need forgiveness for my flaws and help in mending them and the damage they do.

And thats all for me, done rambling - time to get some sleep.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:20:03 PM  

#23  she's right. The Pope's position on condoms directly led to the recent contraction of super-HIV and subsequent AIDS infection of the NY man who had unprotected anal sex with over a 100 unknown men in a gay bathhouse....

rrriiiggghhhttt
Posted by: Frank G   2005-04-08 11:50:53 AM  

#22  Will someone please give this woman a dose of Ritalin. We Non-Catholic Christians may have differences with the Late Pope on a number of issues, both political, and religious, but to refer to him as a promulgator of mass murder is unconscionable.

Her delivery of ad hominem spewage silences discussion of her points, some of which may have validity (non-abortion birth control, etc.), but are a non sequitor to devout Catholics...

So, Polly, SHUT UP!
Posted by: BigEd   2005-04-08 11:29:08 AM  

#21  Tibor,

What, did you lose your leftist playbook?

The Catholic church is responsible for all those deaths, just the same way Reagan was responsible for the spread of AIDS in the U.S.

You know, they both...kind of...well...like... supported the uptight patriarchal view of sexual relations. And as we all know there is no better vector for the spread of disease than a patriarchy.
Posted by: Dreadnought   2005-04-08 10:48:25 AM  

#20  Wonder if Polly's still getting sucked in by those Nigerian scam letters? That'll do wonders for people's perceptions of your intelligence.

http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?HC=&D=12/30/2003&ID=23536
Posted by: tu3031   2005-04-08 10:39:18 AM  

#19  "With its ban on condoms the church has caused the death of millions of Catholics and others in areas dominated by Catholic missionaries, in Africa and right across the world."

Um, I don't get it. Are we supposed to believe that millions of Africans and others who choose not to adhere to the church's teachings on marital fidelity, sexual intercourse only being appropriate in the context of married relationship, homosexuality, etc., strictly adhere to the church's position on condom usage? That's total BS. While the Pope was a champion of the spread of freedom and political democracy, he made it emminently clear that the church is not, and should not be, a democracy.
Posted by: Tibor   2005-04-08 10:34:02 AM  

#18  Steve W,did you e-mail me this stevenrwhite1@comcast.net...Subject: Weah, hello! :-)?If so it has a virus.
Posted by: raptor   2005-04-08 10:27:44 AM  

#17  On the condom issue, the Pope said it best on the issue. He wasn't taking sides, but said he was like a father, just like any father would prefer no sex for their unwed children than safe sex.
Posted by: (=Cobra=)   2005-04-08 9:53:48 AM  

#16  Ha! Polly is a fruit-cake. She's feeling so right about blaming the Pope for killing millions because of his stand with the use of condoms. "Highly Illogical"
Posted by: Chinese Unomoger1553   2005-04-08 9:44:23 AM  

#15  Pope John Paul II: chosen spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics.
Prince Rainier: hereditary leader or 32,000 gambling resort citizens.
Polly Toynbee's Brain: miniscule, with what little there is focused primarily on contraception.
Posted by: Tom   2005-04-08 9:36:07 AM  

#14  Having read your posts, esp # 6 & 9, I find myself asking several questions, meaning no disrespect in any of them. In # 6, you have clearly stated the process of meditation of a mystic: it is a rock, it is a unity, it is after all a rock. You are correct in #9 that christianity predates Zen by several hundred years, but the dharma is a thousand years older than zen, and shows many paths. I don't think the time line is of much real significance anyway, since almost all world religious beliefs have the path of the mystic, and most of them show similar characteristics. My real question to you is: to what degree do you beleive that the catholic path is the only true one. Are other christian paths only faint shadows of the truth, and non-christian paths simply invalid, or are there in pact many rooms in the house? Traditional catholocism, as I understand it, states that the only valid path is through the spiritual Christ. Your thoughts?
Posted by: Weird Al   2005-04-08 8:11:46 AM  

#13  The Pope doesn't have any temporal power. He's a spiritual leader. The Papal States have been gone for 150 years.

Good point, Fred. Losing the Papal States was the best thing that ever happened to the Church since the Resurrection. We're supposed to be in the world, not of the world.
Posted by: Mike   2005-04-08 6:56:18 AM  

#12  A Rantburg classic of a different sort. Fred, an avowed atheist defends the Pope and a Catholic meditates. My 2CW is 'Bollinger Bolsheviks' have mutated into Chardonnay Socialists, a category I would place Ms Toynbee in.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-04-08 6:41:29 AM  

#11  Faith is what gets you through in the toughest of spots Or at least it did for me. I pity those like Polly who have their faith placed in man.

We are moral beings even though many of us deny it (myself included up until a few yeaaars ago).

I meditate, and introspect, and pray on my knees, and humble myself before my maker - and I even give it a lot of thought as to why and how I believe the things that I do.

Thats how I get things like I wrote above.

Stop looking at me like that...

What, did you guys think I was just some analytical stone cold spook?
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 5:14:00 AM  

#10  Remember: Saddam good, Pope bad.

In bizarro al-Guardian world, that is.
Posted by: someone   2005-04-08 5:09:51 AM  

#9  Ah, thats where Christian Mysticism and Zen part ways. Zen may point to the moon, but we know who made both the finger pointing and the moon that it is pointing to.

In actuality, the early Chirstian Desert Fathers & Sisters and their mysticism and contemplative meditations are identical to those in zen, and they came about in 300-600 AD, which predates the Bodhidarma and his journey to China to invent Chi'an (which became Zen when it hit Japan a hundred+ years later).

So despite people thinking Zen is this ancient tradition, Christian contemplative type meditaiton predates it. Why you haven't heard this is that a lot of it was "lost to the Roman Church (and hence western society) when Christianity split east and west, then a lot more was lost when the Moslems boiled out of Arabia and put the Christian Church in the desert to the sword, and burned thier libraries and temples so they could build Mosques on top of them.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 5:09:45 AM  

#8  At this point the boulder "just is" and you accept it as part of natural life

Then you can try some Zen and merge with it... [grin, duck & run]
Posted by: twobyfour   2005-04-08 4:19:21 AM  

#7  Now to really bend your head, rework the analogy to be about God rather than a rock.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 4:07:15 AM  

#6  I've been mediatating prior to watching the Pope's funeral - to heck with my Tivo, I should stay up to see him off regardless of how inconvenient to me. Gotta walk the walk you know.

Anyway, looking back, she strikes me as someone who has not moved fully into freedom, and is ignorant of how far she has to go - and is also iognorant of how little she knows. She is living proof that a little knowledge (very little in her case) is a dangerous thing.

She has only gotten into the first part of the first half - the freedom to ignore/disobey rules. She has yet to move into the freedom that comes from obeying rules by your on voltion.

Once you get there, you need to really start looking at what is, not your conceptions of what is, but seeing "with new eyes". Otherwise you will never move past external freedoms and into the freedoms that internalized freedom gives you. And if you are fortunate enough, you can move past the inner room, and get true freedom.

Its like this...

Here is a scene, a real one not a painting, just a place, put it in your mind. All that is in it is a boulder. No grass, no hils, nothing else of note.

A normal person says "Thats a boulder", but unthinkingly doesnt go any further. That is obliviouness - and it where most peopel are - indeed all of us are there in some respect given a matter about which we know nothing - At this point we have very little freedom other than just naming the object. We can either work to get a deeper understanding of the boulder or simply leave.

Polly is at the next point. The point you say that "I am a free being - I can call that a stone or a tree or a buffalo and nothing you can do can stop me from calling it that". But she can never see it as anything other than something that refuses to be what she wants it to be. So she is free in one sense, to be able to verbalize her wants, but not as free as she could be. And she is in self-deception in that she has placed her ego ahead of reality.

The freedom of accepting rules would move her into a stage where she could look at it as a sculptor or miner, for instance. Educating and discplining your mind to know the rules of sculpting or mining, knowing how rock will chip, how ore looks in the rock - and know them so well that you can see through lenses provided by the rules to what the rock can be: that could be a statue of an eagle, or it could be mined to produce gravel, silver ore, and metals. Once you reach this point, you see the statue or the products every time you look at the boulder. You have the freedom to see all the possibilities this boulder can contain, which is far more freedom than just calling it a name and wishing it was something else. You can use your rules to make the rock into something you want. But you still havent gotten to the truth aobut the rock, only to a stage where you can try to change how the rock looks to you, in your own mind.

The third stage is where you start to internalize and see the boulder for what it is. You can climb on it, you sit on it, use a flat spot to hold your picnic lunch. You are finally looking at the rock for itself, and what you can do without trying to make it into something else.

The last stage is where you see it for what it is, a boulder. Not for what you want to call it, nor what you want to make of it, nor for what you want to do with it. It is a rock, it exists and thats what it is - you see the essential truth of it, inside.

Its the last knowing that give you the most freedom - because you are no longer dominated by your efforts of trying to name the boulder, transform the boulder nor use the boulder, but are just setting your relationship to the boulder and seeing it for what it is.

At this point the boulder "just is" and you accept it as part of natural life - you could no longer see it as anything other than the boulder that it is, you have the freedom found in truth - and the truth found in freedom.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 4:06:19 AM  

#5  I can't say what I want to say a non profane way. Please google for an image of this sad, old, souless prune.

Screw her and the leftist cockroach she rode in on.
Posted by: FlameBait   2005-04-08 2:02:51 AM  

#4  "Still the Vatican turns a blind eye to this most repugnant and damaging of all sexual practices, the suffering little children whose priests come unto them."

Wrong - this has been addressed repeatedly in the US, and is an ongoing requirement by the Bishops form the Vatican that positive steps must be taken swiftly to stop this from happening, get those preists removed and handed over to the authorities, and purge the Church of those who woudl do such evil.

Apparently Polly has been sleeping the last 5 years.

And as for...

"It always expresses itself as disgust for women's bodies, leading to a need to suppress women altogether. "

Bullpucky. Other than the the Triune God himself, Mary is the most venerated (but not worshipped) people in the Church. Last I looked, Mary was still a woman.

Also, she has obviously NEVER read Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body", which dispells about 98% of her hate-filled tirade against religion.

I challenge her to read that, and to talk with a truly non-prejudging mind to Women of the Third Millineum http://www.wttm.org/.

As one of the Vatican documents on Human Sexuality (much of it authored by JP2) says:

Man is called to love and to self-giving in the unity of body and spirit. Femininity and masculinity are complementary gifts, through which human sexuality is an integrating part of the concrete capacity for love which God has inscribed in man and woman. "Sexuality is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. The human body, with its sex, and its masculinity and femininity, seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and procreation, as in the whole natural order, but includes right 'from the beginning' the 'nuptial' attribute, that is, the capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift and — by means of this gift — fulfils the very meaning of being and existence".

Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being "very good", when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and "male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving. The relationship between a man and a woman is essentially a relationship of love: "Sexuality, oriented, elevated and integrated by love acquires truly human quality". When such love exists in marriage, self-giving expresses, through the body, the complementarity and totality of the gift. Married love thus becomes a power which enriches persons and makes them grow and, at the same time, it contributes to building up the civilization of love.

...

But when the sense and meaning of gift is lacking in sexuality, a "civilization of things and not of persons" takes over, "a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use, woman can become an object for man, children a hindrance to parents...".

...

Polly's very logic takes her to that place where peopela re objects and sex is juse a biological function, no higher than an animal. Totalitarianism lurks at the end of that path, using people as a means to your ends.

Polly probably is so blind to her own hatred that she may not even realize what a dead end road she is speeding down with a brick in the accelerator.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 1:01:35 AM  

#3  Polly shoulda been a parrot. I couldn't finish, but Fred was WAAAAAYYYY ahead!
Posted by: Bobby   2005-04-08 12:52:14 AM  

#2  Polly is an idiot.

The Church starts with a statment: God exists and loves us. From that it is a given that Life Matters. And all the contraception policies and teachings, the teachings on euthansia, the teachings on human dignity, the teachings on social justice, all of that flows neccesarily. Its a shame you dont go any further than sophist arguments that are underpinned by the ugly hatred that you show in your writings.

Polly, you doent work from first causes, switching effect for cause, and treating symptom and not the source. You make so many severe errors its hard to weed them all out without writing a 20 page post.

Extramarital sex (which by its nature includes homosexual sex and prostitution) and needles shared in drug abuse are responsible for the vast source of AID, not the lack of condoms. Its evolution at work. If you can control yourself and not rut like a beast in heat, you live. If not, you die. The old Catholic saw about "chaste by your station" rings true as a lifesaving rule.

Polly, its fairly simple, even someone as simpleminded as you. Act liek a moral being and you will live. Act liek a "rationalist" moron and let your hedonism drive you, and you will die.

Sorry Polly, no cracker for you.

Remember Polly, atheists like you fueled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot by refusing to recognize what John Paull II did: Moral choices drive life and death in this world. To ignore them is to reduce humanity to the status of a beast and allow for philosophical support of his enslavement and abuse.

So how does if feel to be nothing more than a piece of sentient meat, no better than a cow Polly? Because that is what lurks you at the end of your philosophical path; Mr Neitsche and gibbet await you there.

Or you can turn and see why Christ's church continues to exist and flourish in the world outside your little self-centered sphere, has done so for 20 centuries, and will continue to do so.

Its up to you, but imagine your surprise when you find out there is a God and he is your judge. Good luck with that. I know which side of the chasm I want to be on.
Posted by: OldSpook   2005-04-08 12:34:00 AM  

#1  Polly has to be one of the most sexually repressed women on the planet. I say this seriously: I occasionally check out her articles, and at least half of them are, in the end, about women and the evils of sex.

She also writes this whopper: ". But goodness is in doing good; good intent is no excuse for murderous error."

Where the hell was that 20 years ago when the Commies were menacing us at the Fulda Gap and when the souls of Eastern Europe were being suppressed? Where was that 40 years ago in the Great Leap Forward? Or the dekulakization of the Ukraine in the 30's? There was murderous error throughout the history of Communism, and it was always excused by the Left because "its intentions were good." Oh well, better late than never, eh Polly?

John Paul II has made some mistakes: the priest sex scandal is the biggest one, and there have been others. I'll forgive him those (even though I won't forgive Bernie Law), because I saw with my own eyes all the good the Pope did. He lived a consistent life, and he practiced what he preached. Polly sure as hell can't say that about herself.
Posted by: Steve White   2005-04-08 12:24:32 AM  

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