"I would intuitively think the same as you, but for some unknown reason there are those groups who feel that it is their mission to do so and to, imho, undermine the group with which they are associating. In the Catholic Church, included are those groups who want the Church to change her position on abortion, those who want the Church to change her position on female ordination, those who want the Church to change her position on any number of items...none of which are possible even if the Church was inclined to do so (as they would require a change in fundamental dogma that goes FAR beyond the change that those heretics want). Why they just don't join a group that they agree with is beyond me.
Well this is my personal opinion but I think that part of the reason at least for an individual is that they feel that it is their duty to God to correct doctrinal error in God's church. In fact it is the duty of a believer to correct doctrinal error in the church. The problem occurs when the error is in an organization that doesn't really care if it aligns itself with the Word or not. Those that don't want to hear true doctrine. If I recall correctly Paul did a lot of correcting of incorrect doctrine to the extent of calling Peter out on the carpet for a doctrinal error. But in our day and perhaps in theirs as well, how does one tell exactly which organization has the true doctrine or do all of them, none of them, or perhaps a mixture, none have all the truth? So does a person go and try to fix them all? or do like Martin Luther and try to fix the one he is in and when that fails start something new? Just me rambling...the mind running amok again...
To ALL:
The bottom line is that a group has the right to establish norms and then to apply some sort of sanction against those who seek to undermine that group through violation of those norms. That's a fact. Whether you talk about a religion, a non-relgious social gathering, a nation-state, an educational institution, or whatever.
You may not like interrogation techniques of the past. I sure don't. But they were used. By almost all groups...if not literally all groups. Is that a function of the specific group? Or is that a function of the time in which those techniques were used?
You are absolutely correct in this matter. Any organization has the right to write its own rule book and expect members to follow it. They have every right to deny membership based on that rule book and the adherence to it. I think most organizations have some written law or tenent that is applied when a member is suspected or accused of subterfuge. I certainly didn't like the way that the Catholic Church handled the Inquisition but then again I didn't like the way the residents of Salem handled the witch trials either or Hitler's cleansing of Germany. But it happened and it is history. We can either learn from it or ignore it.
Well I don't have a clue as to why this post ended up like this but my stuff is in red...now it is anyway...
From reading your posts, I understand a whole lot more about Wicca than I did a couple of years ago.
But one point: for those Wiccans who practice their faith in groups (covens or whatever), you are saying that there are no norms? In other words, a person could be a member of a group (again, coven, or whatever) and then spout Southern Baptist doctrine about witchcraft? And trying to convince others within that group that the Southern Baptist view is the correct view? There would be no sanction against such a person? The person would be able to continue as a member of that coven or whatever?
I'm not Bramble, but I do play her on t.v.
You actually asked two questions, or rather one question about two different situations.
1. you are saying that there are no norms?
Certainly there are groups that establish norms and standards for themselves. However, usually those "norms" are pretty wide, and can include a variety of beliefs. I have personally "fellowshipped" with two groups: the first was extremely eclectic, the second has a set body of beliefs, but allows others to participate in rituals even if they don't subscribe to all of those beliefs. In the first, there was one woman who considered herself a practicing (observant?) Jew.
2. In other words, a person could be a member of a group (again, coven, or whatever) and then spout Southern Baptist doctrine about witchcraft? And trying to convince others within that group that the Southern Baptist view is the correct view? There would be no sanction against such a person? The person would be able to continue as a member of that coven or whatever?
The "sanction" would not be about belief as such, but against behavior. A Christian (at least in my experience) would be welcome, but would not be allowed to continue to condemn the beliefs of the others in the group (that was your point with Southern Baptists, right? "Suffer not a witch to live" and all that?).
And trying to convince others within that group that the Southern Baptist view is the correct view? - "Convincing" others of the rightness of one's views is not discouraged, but once the effort is rejected, continued attempts at "convincing" would most likely be frowned upon.
In your scenario, we have a person who is not joining a group, but infiltrating it with the purpose of undermining it and "converting" the members.
Covens might take oaths-- like vows of silence involving the practices, mysteries, names of other members, vows to not acknowledge someone outside of the circle by their witch names in public, vows to be silent are a big deal. Getting a rep as an oath breaker is a big deal. In fact, getting a bad rep tends to follow people around in the computer network age.
And that would be a norm. That's the point.
The norm is silence. The sanction for violating that norm is 'getting a rep as an oath breaker.'
Oakspear:
The "sanction" would not be about belief as such, but against behavior. A Christian (at least in my experience) would be welcome, but would not be allowed to continue to condemn the beliefs of the others in the group (that was your point with Southern Baptists, right? "Suffer not a witch to live" and all that?).
Sounds like a Unitarian Universalist church.
You are right with your subsequent statement about being an infiltrator; however, one who was in such a group and then was subsequently converted could also apply. Although either could be correct, that was the situation to which I actually was speaking.
Bad/wrong/disruptive behavior can get one kicked out of any group. I don't think violating privacy issues or what people might see as safety measures is quite the same as heresy. Looks like a behavior issue, not a doctrinal one.
I thought the Inquisition was about doctrine, not behavior.
Bad/wrong/disruptive behavior can get one kicked out of any group. I don't think violating privacy issues or what people might see as safety measures is quite the same as heresy. Looks like a behavior issue, not a doctrinal one.
I thought the Inquisition was about doctrine, not behavior.
Good point. I think that often a person's behavior will reflect their contrary beliefs, i.e. Martin Luther preaching against indulgences, and it often got them unwanted attention. But you are right the Inquisition was about maintaining Church doctrine and cleansing the church of heretics or unbelievers.
He wanted the Jewish and Muslim religions wiped out in his domains and - for him - the Purpose Of Spanish Inquisition was a means of achieving that aim.
while we are not Jews our crime was thinking differ than they wanted us to think - so we either became robots or were expelled from the Way
I just had to put this in a today life happen because its sad but it still happens today
thank you
with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy
Thank you Roy...it is sad to be treated that way, especially revolting that it be done in the name of the Savior Christ.
templelady, that is amazing:
This is the canon-- If you don't agree with the canon you have several options:
you can attend LDS services, parties etc and enjoy the fellowship without ever becoming a member.
You can renounce your membership, and still attend LDS Services, parties , etc and enjoy the fellowship.
BUt what the church will not sanction, nor should it be expected to, is you retaining your membership in the church, while declaring or behaving in such a manner that suggests that all or part of the Articles of Faith are not true or preaching doctrine contrary or undermining to the Articles of Faith all the while declaring yourself to be LDS thus giving the impression that this is what the LDS Church represents.
Wonderfully mature and loving! Yet LDS are also considered a cult by many.
Bad/wrong/disruptive behavior can get one kicked out of any group. I don't think violating privacy issues or what people might see as safety measures is quite the same as heresy. Looks like a behavior issue, not a doctrinal one.
I thought the Inquisition was about doctrine, not behavior.
That's the point I'm getting at here. A group has the right to set its norms, be those norms attitudes or behaviors. A person who violates those norms does so at the possible cost of being sanctioned from the group in question.
As to the Inquisition, I don't know about then...only about now. A person could inwardly doubt a tenet of Catholic doctrine and would only have to answer to God for not holding to the Faith. There is no Inquisitorial power around that would ever reach that person or would ever think to question that person. I honestly doubt that we were dealing with a force so sophisticated that it would have been able to detect thought crime, a la Orwell's 1984.
According to current Canon Law (the written norms for the Catholic Church), a heretic only suffers from a public sanction if he makes the heresy "scandalous." In order for it to be "scandalous," other people have to be involved. Essentially, the heretic has to broadcast his heresy in such a way as to decieve the faithful or draw some others away from the Faith. In other words, a 'behavior' is involved. Yes, that behavior stems from an 'attitude,' but the 'attitude' itself, if it remains private, cannot result in a public sanction.
From what I understand, that was, in essence, what happened in the old days, as well.
Now, there may have been, and probably were, instances where a person ended up in the hands of the Inquisition based upon false evidence (neighbors or enemies seeking to settle scores). There may have been, and probably were, instances where a person ended up in the hands of the Inquisition because of the corruptness of an individual inquisitor. It would take very little convincing to convince me of that. It would take equally little convincing to state that other tribunals were equally corrupted in the middle ages...whether Catholic, Protestant, or secular.
Of course, our police and our courts are totally incorruptible today, right? Just ask the Duke Lacrosse team.
But look, also, at the example that you gave me earlier:
- Secrecy. If somebody violates the secrecy of the coven, they will likely be excluded. In the modern day of the Internet, their rep will follow them.
Sure, maintaining secrecy is a behavior. Granted. But valuing secrecy is an attitude, a belief. That common belief held in that group is, although very informally, a doctrine. Sure, you won't see it written anywhere...but either everybody knows it or it is taught.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that you guys have a specific set of doctrines, or dogmas that must be accepted without doubt. I wouldn't be that foolish. But I am trying to illustrate that the norms of behavior, with their underlying attitudes, are not that much different than the dogma that makes up other groups. And that those characteristics, in their most generic sense, are essentially universal.
After all, ever take a civics class in school? (What is that, other than trying to impart catechesis necessary to have a doctrinal foundation?...or to put it in a more secular way, to help the students develop an appreciation for the values needed to be good citizens)
And, by the way, I wish that the modern-day equivalent, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, would act a little more "inquisitive" than it does.
For an example of those who need that type of inquiry, please refer to this article in The Hill magazine.
Whether you agree with them or not on the issue...if they're going to call themselves 'catholic' then they ought to act that way. Otherwise, drop the label.
tho it seems as tho whenever i go this direction around here
it comes off like a fart in church
so please forgive if i come off like someone who is vomiting
cuz i am
my opinions on this topic and period of history has become like a cat trying to hack up a very painful hairball
as it pertains to both science and medicine and religion and just about every other friggin important thing it seems
its like this big wide historic dent in our skulls that has us living largely in very small fragments
ack
Originally, the Purpose Of Spanish Inquisition was to deal with the problem of Jews and Muslims who - through strong coercion - had insincerely converted to Christianity.
that may be how the inquisitors have told the story
but starting in about 1000 ad, there was a period of about 500 years where jews, catholics, muslims and others practiced medicine together
hospital and hospice and hospitality were the common thread they all found
they built sanctuaries like palaces for people to die well in
bringing the arts of dying together from all over the world
yep...large groups of these children of abraham came together and used to psalms the way they were meant be used
as they discovered and developed a common ground between spirituallity and medicine
they found an authentic reason for interfaith dialogue in europe's first hospital system
no, this was not grounded in theology
though it was free to explore it without getting delusional
and nor was it grounded in reason
though it was abundant for a much wider array of things
it was grounded in silence, stillness, and a deep practical respect for our mortal state of affairs
in ways where even our modern hospice movement has not yet duplicated
...tho i must say that i have a lot of hope that we will..and are
but those were the millions of people and books that were burned
yep...rabbis and catholics and druids and muslims all writing on the same pages
...nurses monks and nuns taking notes in the margins on end of life realities
...slaughtered and erased and meant to be forgotten
wtf? ya know?
and we have still not recovered...perhaps because we are still mostly oblivious to why it happened, how it happened, or that it happened...
...at least in ways that inform the decisions we make now
science and medicine and religion and culture have been sliding away from a healthy relationship with dying ever since
in ways that perhaps feed the world's worst problems (greed, revenge, illness, and all the various delusions and distractions and oblivions we seem to find so easily these days, etc...)
gratefully, as least, i dont think there is a person alive to blame for this worsening condition we find ourselves in
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Eyesopen
You are absolutely correct in this matter. Any organization has the right to write its own rule book and expect members to follow it. They have every right to deny membership based on that rule book and the adherence to it. I think most organizations have some written law or tenent that is applied when a member is suspected or accused of subterfuge. I certainly didn't like the way that the Catholic Church handled the Inquisition but then again I didn't like the way the residents of Salem handled the witch trials either or Hitler's cleansing of Germany. But it happened and it is history. We can either learn from it or ignore it.
Well I don't have a clue as to why this post ended up like this but my stuff is in red...now it is anyway...
I'm going to bed...night all
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Oakspear
You actually asked two questions, or rather one question about two different situations.
1. you are saying that there are no norms?
Certainly there are groups that establish norms and standards for themselves. However, usually those "norms" are pretty wide, and can include a variety of beliefs. I have personally "fellowshipped" with two groups: the first was extremely eclectic, the second has a set body of beliefs, but allows others to participate in rituals even if they don't subscribe to all of those beliefs. In the first, there was one woman who considered herself a practicing (observant?) Jew.
2. In other words, a person could be a member of a group (again, coven, or whatever) and then spout Southern Baptist doctrine about witchcraft? And trying to convince others within that group that the Southern Baptist view is the correct view? There would be no sanction against such a person? The person would be able to continue as a member of that coven or whatever?
The "sanction" would not be about belief as such, but against behavior. A Christian (at least in my experience) would be welcome, but would not be allowed to continue to condemn the beliefs of the others in the group (that was your point with Southern Baptists, right? "Suffer not a witch to live" and all that?).
And trying to convince others within that group that the Southern Baptist view is the correct view? - "Convincing" others of the rightness of one's views is not discouraged, but once the effort is rejected, continued attempts at "convincing" would most likely be frowned upon.
In your scenario, we have a person who is not joining a group, but infiltrating it with the purpose of undermining it and "converting" the members.
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markomalley
Bramble:
And that would be a norm. That's the point.The norm is silence. The sanction for violating that norm is 'getting a rep as an oath breaker.'
Oakspear:
Sounds like a Unitarian Universalist church.
You are right with your subsequent statement about being an infiltrator; however, one who was in such a group and then was subsequently converted could also apply. Although either could be correct, that was the situation to which I actually was speaking.
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Bramble
Bad/wrong/disruptive behavior can get one kicked out of any group. I don't think violating privacy issues or what people might see as safety measures is quite the same as heresy. Looks like a behavior issue, not a doctrinal one.
I thought the Inquisition was about doctrine, not behavior.
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Eyesopen
Good point. I think that often a person's behavior will reflect their contrary beliefs, i.e. Martin Luther preaching against indulgences, and it often got them unwanted attention. But you are right the Inquisition was about maintaining Church doctrine and cleansing the church of heretics or unbelievers.
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Siouxzahn
Thank you Roy...it is sad to be treated that way, especially revolting that it be done in the name of the Savior Christ.
templelady, that is amazing:
Wonderfully mature and loving! Yet LDS are also considered a cult by many.
Very interesting.
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markomalley
That's the point I'm getting at here. A group has the right to set its norms, be those norms attitudes or behaviors. A person who violates those norms does so at the possible cost of being sanctioned from the group in question.
As to the Inquisition, I don't know about then...only about now. A person could inwardly doubt a tenet of Catholic doctrine and would only have to answer to God for not holding to the Faith. There is no Inquisitorial power around that would ever reach that person or would ever think to question that person. I honestly doubt that we were dealing with a force so sophisticated that it would have been able to detect thought crime, a la Orwell's 1984.
According to current Canon Law (the written norms for the Catholic Church), a heretic only suffers from a public sanction if he makes the heresy "scandalous." In order for it to be "scandalous," other people have to be involved. Essentially, the heretic has to broadcast his heresy in such a way as to decieve the faithful or draw some others away from the Faith. In other words, a 'behavior' is involved. Yes, that behavior stems from an 'attitude,' but the 'attitude' itself, if it remains private, cannot result in a public sanction.
From what I understand, that was, in essence, what happened in the old days, as well.
Now, there may have been, and probably were, instances where a person ended up in the hands of the Inquisition based upon false evidence (neighbors or enemies seeking to settle scores). There may have been, and probably were, instances where a person ended up in the hands of the Inquisition because of the corruptness of an individual inquisitor. It would take very little convincing to convince me of that. It would take equally little convincing to state that other tribunals were equally corrupted in the middle ages...whether Catholic, Protestant, or secular.
Of course, our police and our courts are totally incorruptible today, right? Just ask the Duke Lacrosse team.
But look, also, at the example that you gave me earlier:
- Secrecy. If somebody violates the secrecy of the coven, they will likely be excluded. In the modern day of the Internet, their rep will follow them.
Sure, maintaining secrecy is a behavior. Granted. But valuing secrecy is an attitude, a belief. That common belief held in that group is, although very informally, a doctrine. Sure, you won't see it written anywhere...but either everybody knows it or it is taught.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that you guys have a specific set of doctrines, or dogmas that must be accepted without doubt. I wouldn't be that foolish. But I am trying to illustrate that the norms of behavior, with their underlying attitudes, are not that much different than the dogma that makes up other groups. And that those characteristics, in their most generic sense, are essentially universal.
After all, ever take a civics class in school? (What is that, other than trying to impart catechesis necessary to have a doctrinal foundation?...or to put it in a more secular way, to help the students develop an appreciation for the values needed to be good citizens)
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Eyesopen
OMG!!! Do you mean to tell me that there really isn't a thought police? :o All this time I thought....
Just kidding...
Great post Mark!
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markomalley
For an example of those who need that type of inquiry, please refer to this article in The Hill magazine.
Whether you agree with them or not on the issue...if they're going to call themselves 'catholic' then they ought to act that way. Otherwise, drop the label.
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sirguessalot
interesting
grateful this came up
tho it seems as tho whenever i go this direction around here
it comes off like a fart in church
so please forgive if i come off like someone who is vomiting
cuz i am
my opinions on this topic and period of history has become like a cat trying to hack up a very painful hairball
as it pertains to both science and medicine and religion and just about every other friggin important thing it seems
its like this big wide historic dent in our skulls that has us living largely in very small fragments
ack
that may be how the inquisitors have told the story
but starting in about 1000 ad, there was a period of about 500 years where jews, catholics, muslims and others practiced medicine together
hospital and hospice and hospitality were the common thread they all found
they built sanctuaries like palaces for people to die well in
bringing the arts of dying together from all over the world
yep...large groups of these children of abraham came together and used to psalms the way they were meant be used
as they discovered and developed a common ground between spirituallity and medicine
they found an authentic reason for interfaith dialogue in europe's first hospital system
no, this was not grounded in theology
though it was free to explore it without getting delusional
and nor was it grounded in reason
though it was abundant for a much wider array of things
it was grounded in silence, stillness, and a deep practical respect for our mortal state of affairs
in ways where even our modern hospice movement has not yet duplicated
...tho i must say that i have a lot of hope that we will..and are
but those were the millions of people and books that were burned
yep...rabbis and catholics and druids and muslims all writing on the same pages
...nurses monks and nuns taking notes in the margins on end of life realities
...slaughtered and erased and meant to be forgotten
wtf? ya know?
and we have still not recovered...perhaps because we are still mostly oblivious to why it happened, how it happened, or that it happened...
...at least in ways that inform the decisions we make now
science and medicine and religion and culture have been sliding away from a healthy relationship with dying ever since
in ways that perhaps feed the world's worst problems (greed, revenge, illness, and all the various delusions and distractions and oblivions we seem to find so easily these days, etc...)
gratefully, as least, i dont think there is a person alive to blame for this worsening condition we find ourselves in
...we were all born in this sort of deep doo doo
sigh
ug
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