Thank you for this very reasonable explanation. I'm not conscious of failing to answer questions, I tried to keep on all the cascades, ping me what I missed, and I'll look again too. Maybe it was while I was at Sabbath services.
CIAMM has made statements about strong similarities. For instance IIRC the four EO sees took the related position that the claimant to Peter's seat has certain primacies but without superiority, and that the Patriarch of Constantinople has the second seat, and that the original sees should only take action in unanimity, and they haven't changed that. But the basic rule for everyone is if you want to bash a practice use facts and logic. Bash the EO for what it is because calling it the RCC rhetorically creates so much smoke your fire goes out.
So specifics. Yes, no idols; atonement once for all; one mediator. Yes, veneration claims are perceived harmful and must be judged on what the apologetics say and whether the practice agrees with a Biblical apologetic or goes too far. Yes, claims of continual sacrifice are perceived blasphemous and must be judged the same way. Yes, confession of sins to human guides is perceived as leading to heresy, same. I've invited reference to CCC to see how they explain these and compare it with Scripture, but haven't taken initiative to review that recently.
The ticklishness is that among us real believers we need to accept that these two vast bodies are as aware of the Biblical standards as the Protestants, and they have made their claims in a public, transparent manner. Formal Protestant positions of rejection exist but are not nearly as developed. Among the real believers in Christ the issue ought always to be Romans 14. One man's conscience permits him to partake of the "host", another man's prohibits him. The phrase "let each be fully convinced in his own mind" means that we do have the power to agree to disagree. Paul and Barnabas parting ways, even amidst strong and emotional divergence, gives us an example of how to proceed if it requires separate polity too; but I'm mostly talking about separation of practice only. There's a position that the host is always idolatrous, and there's a position that the host easily becomes idolatrous, and that nuance is very important to maintain!
So let's feel free to open dialogue to pick on those three questions (but let's not be insensitive to those Catholics who are also watching). There is nothing implied by the fact that we finally got around to a statement on universalism, which was the debate of the day, but we didn't get around to a formal position on Catholic excess. You're concerned that it's a stance to let the discussion flow freely without tightening or chilling in any direction; but the forum rules are to use the creeds as a baseline, and near as these issues are I don't have a simple attack. "No idols", then counterargument "veneration is not idolatry", and then we have to define terms and tie things down. For the forum's sake it's a bit harder to pull the criticism directly from the creed or commandments. But it can be discussed as a Romans 14 community.
And there your other issue comes in: neither you nor we may engage activity that can be reasonably known to offend others. There the dialogue ought to be about what lines not to cross. Don't take offense if you get heated on a topic and I give you a mod warning that I think you crossed a line we discussed that you don't think you crossed. Instead, calmly and without escalation, appeal to me the reasons for your disagreement. Often in modding it's such a small issue that it's not worth the distraction from your original topic. But just as you're watching, you're being watched by others, and circumspection is the word. But we can certainly go forward discussing consistency of rules, and specific clarifications about Roman practice.
As a tentative trial on those, I'd say (1) we can establish semiformal descriptions of mod practice between us and reevaluate selected decisions in that light; (2) veneration relates to the language used in approving the practice versus the Biblical language brought to bear against both the base practice and its excesses (including, e.g., bowing down to humans in respect throughout the Bible); (3) mass relates to the nature of sacrifice (we are the body of Christ and we are a living sacrifice, so we need to define terms very closely); (4) confession of sins, and the shepherding movement in Protestantism, relate to the nature of "confess your sins one to another" versus the authority of God in direct relationship with him. Maybe you want to add others. If you're willing to consent to this, it would be a breath of fresh air to me to know that such a dialogue could proceed in such way as to not offend others who perceive us as taking too much liberty in speech (Romans 14 again) but still reach propositions that answer the concern.
Is that sufficient to say we can move forward with discussion like this and take forward steps like deferring your offenses against us to the judgment we would mutually reach in focusing on these topics, and deferring your demand that we relinquish the forum to be satisfied by what remediation and self-probation we might mutually agree to in that discussion?
CuomoisaMassMurderer 3 points 20 hours ago +3 / -0 Use the analogy of a 13 year old girl being raped by 4 guys twice my size. I'd put a stop to it even if it meant getting killed. Your treatment of Catholics is equally as heinous.
This one didn't ping either of us. My answer conveyed the ambiguity. Yes, as being corruption of the human creature before the infinitely holy God; no, as being two different misuses of human relations. (This is my third time.)
Pressing this objection and rephrasing it as you do in another comment is not likely to advance us much on the work we have before us. But maybe we can seize upon it as a segue: shall we add bad analogies to the list of things that we can work on regulating better in the future as part of our negotiation? You're not asking us just for rhetoric's sake, you actually want certain behavior to stop and to work toward that goal, right?
Good to see you this morning. Reviewing the past history has answered a lot of questions for me in supplying the missing evidences in your history. Looks like we can put a proposed resolution together for you pretty quickly.
Well, see, your sin is the other side of the coin from ours, isn't it? I've reviewed your charges in detail and can see some room for improvement on our side. One of the things necessary is that you and we have an understanding of how the policy against attack is to be applied rigorously and evenly across the board to each of us. If we reach that understanding, might some of your statements about Catholics be judged as going beyond doctrinal criticism into attack on individuals for their reasonable beliefs and affiliations? We must use caution. Do you want us to answer this request you asked us?
He would bash Catholics, spewing vile misrepresentations of them whenever a known Catholic commented.
Show this to us, pagan. Bring your comments that precede them also.
It might be easier for you to just say you might've gone overboard in the past about Catholics, or Orthodox, than for us to actually list the evidence for CIAMM's assertion. Our making a counterclaim isn't that important. I've found the comments CIAMM made that seem to be the primary provocations to you, but that doesn't mean all your comments were provoked either.
So I'd suggest that we finesse that question by making it some kind of vague stipulation that'll be good enough for CIAMM to not object over, because having done that we can get to the meat you have on how bad veneration is and the difference from other forms of human respect, things like that. We don't even have to make it RCC-bashing because we can stick to bashing the EO so as to keep it among our sphere of experience, and it'll probably be easier to find agreement about it before we get to the thornier excesses of the RCC (both in individuals' abuses and in apologetic fencing).
Thank you for this very reasonable explanation. I'm not conscious of failing to answer questions, I tried to keep on all the cascades, ping me what I missed, and I'll look again too. Maybe it was while I was at Sabbath services.
CIAMM has made statements about strong similarities. For instance IIRC the four EO sees took the related position that the claimant to Peter's seat has certain primacies but without superiority, and that the Patriarch of Constantinople has the second seat, and that the original sees should only take action in unanimity, and they haven't changed that. But the basic rule for everyone is if you want to bash a practice use facts and logic. Bash the EO for what it is because calling it the RCC rhetorically creates so much smoke your fire goes out.
So specifics. Yes, no idols; atonement once for all; one mediator. Yes, veneration claims are perceived harmful and must be judged on what the apologetics say and whether the practice agrees with a Biblical apologetic or goes too far. Yes, claims of continual sacrifice are perceived blasphemous and must be judged the same way. Yes, confession of sins to human guides is perceived as leading to heresy, same. I've invited reference to CCC to see how they explain these and compare it with Scripture, but haven't taken initiative to review that recently.
The ticklishness is that among us real believers we need to accept that these two vast bodies are as aware of the Biblical standards as the Protestants, and they have made their claims in a public, transparent manner. Formal Protestant positions of rejection exist but are not nearly as developed. Among the real believers in Christ the issue ought always to be Romans 14. One man's conscience permits him to partake of the "host", another man's prohibits him. The phrase "let each be fully convinced in his own mind" means that we do have the power to agree to disagree. Paul and Barnabas parting ways, even amidst strong and emotional divergence, gives us an example of how to proceed if it requires separate polity too; but I'm mostly talking about separation of practice only. There's a position that the host is always idolatrous, and there's a position that the host easily becomes idolatrous, and that nuance is very important to maintain!
So let's feel free to open dialogue to pick on those three questions (but let's not be insensitive to those Catholics who are also watching). There is nothing implied by the fact that we finally got around to a statement on universalism, which was the debate of the day, but we didn't get around to a formal position on Catholic excess. You're concerned that it's a stance to let the discussion flow freely without tightening or chilling in any direction; but the forum rules are to use the creeds as a baseline, and near as these issues are I don't have a simple attack. "No idols", then counterargument "veneration is not idolatry", and then we have to define terms and tie things down. For the forum's sake it's a bit harder to pull the criticism directly from the creed or commandments. But it can be discussed as a Romans 14 community.
And there your other issue comes in: neither you nor we may engage activity that can be reasonably known to offend others. There the dialogue ought to be about what lines not to cross. Don't take offense if you get heated on a topic and I give you a mod warning that I think you crossed a line we discussed that you don't think you crossed. Instead, calmly and without escalation, appeal to me the reasons for your disagreement. Often in modding it's such a small issue that it's not worth the distraction from your original topic. But just as you're watching, you're being watched by others, and circumspection is the word. But we can certainly go forward discussing consistency of rules, and specific clarifications about Roman practice.
As a tentative trial on those, I'd say (1) we can establish semiformal descriptions of mod practice between us and reevaluate selected decisions in that light; (2) veneration relates to the language used in approving the practice versus the Biblical language brought to bear against both the base practice and its excesses (including, e.g., bowing down to humans in respect throughout the Bible); (3) mass relates to the nature of sacrifice (we are the body of Christ and we are a living sacrifice, so we need to define terms very closely); (4) confession of sins, and the shepherding movement in Protestantism, relate to the nature of "confess your sins one to another" versus the authority of God in direct relationship with him. Maybe you want to add others. If you're willing to consent to this, it would be a breath of fresh air to me to know that such a dialogue could proceed in such way as to not offend others who perceive us as taking too much liberty in speech (Romans 14 again) but still reach propositions that answer the concern.
Is that sufficient to say we can move forward with discussion like this and take forward steps like deferring your offenses against us to the judgment we would mutually reach in focusing on these topics, and deferring your demand that we relinquish the forum to be satisfied by what remediation and self-probation we might mutually agree to in that discussion?
CuomoisaMassMurderer 3 points 20 hours ago +3 / -0 Use the analogy of a 13 year old girl being raped by 4 guys twice my size. I'd put a stop to it even if it meant getting killed. Your treatment of Catholics is equally as heinous.
Do you, SR, agree with this?
Don't give me a long babbling non-answer, the answer is either yes or no, was my conduct at the blog comparable to "4 guys raping a 13 year old?"
This one didn't ping either of us. My answer conveyed the ambiguity. Yes, as being corruption of the human creature before the infinitely holy God; no, as being two different misuses of human relations. (This is my third time.)
Pressing this objection and rephrasing it as you do in another comment is not likely to advance us much on the work we have before us. But maybe we can seize upon it as a segue: shall we add bad analogies to the list of things that we can work on regulating better in the future as part of our negotiation? You're not asking us just for rhetoric's sake, you actually want certain behavior to stop and to work toward that goal, right?
I'd said, "In the sense of all sin is heinous before God, he has a point. Rhetorically, though, not the best one." (https://communities.win/p/13zgNkKr04/x/c/4JFq7sAr8jr)
Good to see you this morning. Reviewing the past history has answered a lot of questions for me in supplying the missing evidences in your history. Looks like we can put a proposed resolution together for you pretty quickly.
I sinned against God?
Well, see, your sin is the other side of the coin from ours, isn't it? I've reviewed your charges in detail and can see some room for improvement on our side. One of the things necessary is that you and we have an understanding of how the policy against attack is to be applied rigorously and evenly across the board to each of us. If we reach that understanding, might some of your statements about Catholics be judged as going beyond doctrinal criticism into attack on individuals for their reasonable beliefs and affiliations? We must use caution. Do you want us to answer this request you asked us?
It might be easier for you to just say you might've gone overboard in the past about Catholics, or Orthodox, than for us to actually list the evidence for CIAMM's assertion. Our making a counterclaim isn't that important. I've found the comments CIAMM made that seem to be the primary provocations to you, but that doesn't mean all your comments were provoked either.
So I'd suggest that we finesse that question by making it some kind of vague stipulation that'll be good enough for CIAMM to not object over, because having done that we can get to the meat you have on how bad veneration is and the difference from other forms of human respect, things like that. We don't even have to make it RCC-bashing because we can stick to bashing the EO so as to keep it among our sphere of experience, and it'll probably be easier to find agreement about it before we get to the thornier excesses of the RCC (both in individuals' abuses and in apologetic fencing).