[Francisco] I wonder what Dmb thinks of the CONCRETE theism of the likes of St. Francis of Assisi, Maximillian Kolbe, Titus Brandsma, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred Bishop Oscar Romero, Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, Christian activists of Africa, South America and the Philippines. Low quality theism?
[Arlo] If I believe in leprechauns and because of that belief help an old lady across a busy street so that she can find the pot o' gold, my actions may have produced good results (getting an old lady safely through traffic), but that does not mean my beliefs are High Quality. Moreso, humans do not need to believe in leprechauns to find reason to help old ladies across busy streets. But I am not advocating that we should dismiss leprechaun stories, rather encourage people to take a Bird's Eye view of stories about leprechauns, gods, pixie fairies, titans, bird-people, talking crows, spider women, burning bushes, etc. and instead of arguing which story is "right", or which character in which story is "true", ask "what is it that all these fingers are trying to point to? What are the strengths and weaknesses of any?" And then see each in its historical, geographical, social context, to see, e.g., the historical progression of Myth in the Occidental tradition and the evolution or transfer of particular metaphorical thema over time. In the end, its like Art. Humankind's Myths hang like paintings in the Great Human Condition Museum. A visitor may say "This is the One True Painting, all others are false", and perhaps there is nothing we can do to prevent this (we can prevent this person from destroying the other paintings, or preventing other people from seeing the other paintings), but we should continue encouraging patrons to take a larger perspective, to walk the halls of the museum and see that all its paintings point to that which is beyond words, incapable of description or containment, and see the tools deployed in any one painting (color, form, image, perspective, etc.) are simply manifestations of that painter's historical placement and social context. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
