Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2000 22:44:07 -0800
Subject: Re: forgiving is impossible


David writes: 
>Again, I find the liberal humanism/Christianity of this rhetoric most 
>disturbing.  It presupposes the innocence of the one who would forgive, does 
>it not? 

David:

Only a 'higher' authority can forgive. This is reason itself. This whole
paragraph is paraphrased from Protagoras and Socrates who is speaking with
the Eleatic Stranger. I should have cited my sources, so it is pagan
antiquity, not Xtian. Souls according to Plato are infinite innocent. It is
the defective intellect, ignorance, an act that cannot be forgiven. Humanism
and Xtian thinking does not disturb me, only particular expressions of
humanism and xtian thinking disturb me, for instance 'The Grand Inquisitor"
but not Santa Teresa or Psuedo-dionysius. 

My flesh would crawl every time I walked by a church if I the way you do
David. I can think just as much as believe, but I let my thinking capacities
assist my beliefs rationally, morally and ethically. It is the aesthetics
that are problematic....

Sincerely,

John 






 What do you mean by "moral correction or punishment"?  
>
>David
>