This is RCA. Do you remember?
I really out of the loop here. I'm back in town because I bought Jack and Alice's house and they have built a very fine 'condo' type addition on Meg and Jimmy's house. I'm a detail man so I've been here several weeks, and will probably stay till early December fixing up details.
I don't want to get into fights, but as you might recall I responded to M...'s ugly email to Jack. Jack and I love to debate, and, as you know, I'm a bit anti-catholic. The little scanning of the blogs leaves me with 3 conclusions. I find your position hard to follow as you would expect but I see no hint of the hypocrite in what I have read from you. Jack is basically very nice and what he has done for others over the years is amazing; but to those who don't know him he clearly gives the impression of intemperance. As for M..., I find his effort to deflect responsibility for the child abuse scandal revolting. I see exactly what Jack says about his method, and to be frank it stirs up my anti-catholicism. But let's end on a happy note. Great to see your thoughts. O. by the way Jack is letting Frank do the posting the rest of this week as a class project at his college. RCA
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Hi, RCA, welcome back. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat about my position do you find hard to follow? I love to debate, too, so comment all you want on what I say.
Both you and Jack have mentioned M's attempt to deflect responsibility for the child abuse scandal. I don't get this. I went and looked at what he wrote in one of Jeff's threads, and I understood him to be saying that there are many causes for the scandal rather than just one (which I would agree with him on); I didn't understand him to be saying that the bishops weren't responsible for their actions nor did I think he was making light of the scandal.
God bless,
Anna
Anna, I'm just not inclined to religion. You are, and I respect that.
ReplyDeleteOn M's comment you are familiar with the old tactic of 'anticipation' which M often uses. You admit to much of what opponent is saying to establish your 'fairness' then you make your own point which is a putdown of your opponent. M's comment is textbook classic. Agree with somethings and then conclude with "schadenfreude". Definition: Taking malicious delight in the misfortune of others. Anna your great but don't fall for one of the oldest tricks in debating. RCA
Robert,
ReplyDeleteYou're not inclined to know your own Father? I know religion just seems like one more aspect of life, like debate is, or sports, or country music, a particular topic that you can either be interested in or not. But it's more than that. It's a relationship with someone. If you neglect that relationship, if you decline to know Him better and receive the gifts he has to give you, then you can only suffer for it. Because he is the source of everything good - the more you pull away from him, the less good you will have in your life.
Why would you accuse M of "anticipation"? He came out and said there might be an element of shadenfreude right towards the beginning of his comment, before he went into the spiel about how the sex abuse scandal has multiple causes instead of just one.
I do agree with what he said about multiple causes; I'm not so sure I agree with his comment on shadenfreude. Mike said that the fact that liberal and conservative Catholics alike hold near contempt for the offending bishops is testimony that shadenfreude is a significant element. To that extent, I disagree with him. There is probably some shadenfreude going on, given the fallen nature of people in general, but I think that, by far, the reason both camps agree in their attitude to the offending bishops is because it is so patently obvious to people that what they did was wrong. A righteous anger, in other words, rather than schadenfreude.
I still agree with him, though, that we ought not to boil the sex abuse crisis down to just one element or cause; that it's better to acknowledge all the factors that went into it.
God bless,
Anna
Anna, you can theoretically find multiple causes for everything. A car wreck for example. Had the lighting been better, had each car been in perfect condition, were both drivers only devoted to driving, were the cars built for safety etc. to almost infinity.
ReplyDeleteBut I am surprised you did not see his ploy. They taught the ploy in debate when I was in high school, about a century ago. RCA