iwpoe wrote:

Seán Mac Críodáin wrote:

I think only a minority of the people who think abortion should be legal, and even of the people who think it should be not only legal but made cheap, easy and shameless, are, strictly speaking, "pro-abortion". The impression I get is that most of the "pro-choice" crowd regards it as a lesser evil to the alternatives. This isn't a meaningless distinction, because it's the same distinction by which a person who believes a certain war should be waged because it is just is not, therefore, simply "pro-war".

Pro-legal-abortion not abortion überhaupt. I'm mainly just concerned that the basic terms have nothing to do with abortion in an argument over abortion.

Right, it's because both sides are choosing to locate their identity in the reasoning behind their position on abortion, rather than the position itself. It's all a rhetorical game, of course, and a meaningless one at this point, because to nearly everyone, "pro-life" is a code-word for "thinks abortion should not be legal", and vice versa. Though, you will get the occasional odd duck, like me in a former life, who will insist on something like "pro-abortion" because they're in favour of abortion but not especially keen on choice.

Shade Tree Philosopher wrote:

Welcome!

Though (i've been in a joking mood for days) the title of this thread makes me think of a children's book for young philosophers, 'Hellow Forum, Hello Moon', heh heh.

Chris-Kirk

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Welcome, Sean! ​Are you Eastern Orthodox?

I am an ex-Anglican (sort of) and have considered joining an Orthodox Church myself.

 
I'm part of a Byzantine Rite parish, so I suppose I'm technically Eastern Orthodox, but I'm a westerner and I don't like to be a special snowflake by using an unusual term like Western Orthodox, so I normally just say Orthodox. But yes, I am part of the Patriarchate of Antioch, in communion with the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches.

What do you mean by sort of ex-Anglican?

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

One of my criticisms of Christianity is its framing of non-corporeal realms and entities. There tends to be a simplistic assumption that all is either angels or demons or, for some Catholics and Orthodox, spirits of the dead . What C. S. Lewis called the Longaevi and any other sorts of entities or experiences that do not easily fit into (what to me is) the somewhat simplistic Christian view of these things is ignored.

 
I, too, seriously entertain the possibility of the existence of the fair folk. Such is not incompatible with the Christian faith. Now, there is, to my knowledge, no readily available tidy explanation of how they fit into the overall scheme, but we shouldn't particularly expect there to be one. Generally speaking, God provides us with information about strange and hidden things on a "need to know" basis. This is for our own good; they're hidden for a reason, whatever that reason might be. Most probably if they exist they have their own things going on that haven't got much to do with us.

Nevertheless, encounters with intelligent creatures which don't fit the mold of man, angel or devil appear in the lives of several of the saints. I know there's at least one from Britain, but the one I'm most familiar with is the one from St Jerome's work on St Antony, where he reports that Antony, while travelling through the desert, met a centaur who gave him directions, and a satyr who told him that he had been sent by his people as a representative to tell the saint that they knew of the true God and desired the saint's intercession for them.

iwpoe wrote:

Mmmm, it's the modern "rationalists" who cast romanticism that way. The passions are not opposed to reason, but all are unified in the person and exemplified at their best in the man of worth. Nor either are they subjective in the sense a rationalist means. They are neither merely personal nor distorting: to rage is to rage at a man which is to see his wrongs, and his weaknesses, and the most direct path straight to the heart of him.

Also, and I don't know if this holds in Orthodoxy, but remember that for Augustine, to look "inside" is to find God. We are not so alienated from God that the divine presence is not to be found "in" us also. I should think that if the passions are directed at God and turn one towards Godly things, then we should not consider them in opposition to God. This is the closest I'll come to defending pentecostalism, lol, but I think that "enthusiasts" and "charismatics" of all sorts aren't utterly wrong. They are spiritually lopsided, but it's understandable as an overreaction in this age.

I don't think we disagree at all. I expressed myself imprecisely for the sake of brevity.

An image which the Fathers use is that of a circle. Arrayed along its circumference are all the passions and all of our powers, and in the middle is the real spiritual centre, where God may be found. When we are bound by our passions, we're dispersed and thrown around the outside circumference. We can only see the territory we presently occupy, so the demands of the present passion seem large, overpowering and very important. But when we become gathered together in the centre with God, we're securely seated, and we can survey and direct all our passions and powers towards their right ends. None of them are inherently wrong, but they are totally disordered before we correct them in this way.

Now, the problem with finding God inside us is that he's, well, God! God is absolutely ineffable. It is absolutely impossible to grasp hold of G

iwpoe wrote:

Clearly- in the high style of the nineteenth century. To be honest the real Kierkegaardian danger is melodrama and camp not irrationality. He has no means for reigning in either, and romanticism has gotten lost in both at present.

The Fathers wouldn't like that at all. It's a startlingly obvious invitation to prelest (spiritual pride/deception), for anyone with eyes to see. Romantic subjectivism cannot be the way to Christ, because it turns man in on himself and will lead him to find something within himself to which he has associated passionate strength, and to misinterpret this as God.