I certainly try to be good, and I try to be nice and when I can't be I try to do and say nothing, but I don't always succeed. Anyone who thinks that I'm going to be reasonable and nice and easy to talk to in all circumstances is going to be disappointed.
I think differences between the Catholic and Protestant theologies changes our expectations of people, depending on which faith tradition is more a part of how we believe. As I understand it, from the Protestant perspective, one's acts proves how "Christian" one is. If you don't act the part, you aren't a Christian. I think this relates also to the idea of once saved, always saved. If you fall, it just means that you were never saved in the first place, so calling into question a person's Christianity is essentially saying that they not saved.
The Catholic perspective is different, however. Salvation can be lost by what we do and how we think. We believe any person can be tempted to do evil if the temptation is strong enough, and that any person can consequently lose their salvation, and regained again through Confession. We pray for the ability to resist temptation, knowing that the grace will be given, however also being aware that our wills and our ability to love are both weak, that our pride is always present, and therefore failure is inevitable, even when we convince ourselves that we are doing the right things at the time.
I definitely have failed this week.
I don't regret linking to Peter Aranyi's post. Obviously reading it is going to be painful for some of the subjects of the post as it's impossible to separate the people from the events, I do get that. I do also ask though, that I be allowed to
I'm always going to have my own interpretation of what happened this week due to my own experiences, and they will influence the way I look at the issues, that can't be helped. I will try, however, to attribute purer motives to everyone involved, despite what my more paranoid side conjures up for me.
As I have said before, I don't respond well to what I consider to be emotional manipulation. It's a real button pusher for me, something that is likely to set me off when I think it's being done.
Hence, I don't like the practice of labeling someone "evil". A person can do evil acts, or acts which aren't necessarily evil, but have evil consequences, but they themselves cannot be "evil", they can only act in an evil manner.
To move forward, I would like to direct everyone to another one of Peter Aranyi's posts, on the ‘wider factors to consider’ in recent online gagging order, where he links to an article by Steven Price, who points out that the harassment case that is the subject of this post is ‘a radical judgement that bypasses defamation law’. Not being a lawyer, just a mere blogger, I found it instructive.
I think differences between the Catholic and Protestant theologies changes our expectations of people, depending on which faith tradition is more a part of how we believe. As I understand it, from the Protestant perspective, one's acts proves how "Christian" one is. If you don't act the part, you aren't a Christian. I think this relates also to the idea of once saved, always saved. If you fall, it just means that you were never saved in the first place, so calling into question a person's Christianity is essentially saying that they not saved.
The Catholic perspective is different, however. Salvation can be lost by what we do and how we think. We believe any person can be tempted to do evil if the temptation is strong enough, and that any person can consequently lose their salvation, and regained again through Confession. We pray for the ability to resist temptation, knowing that the grace will be given, however also being aware that our wills and our ability to love are both weak, that our pride is always present, and therefore failure is inevitable, even when we convince ourselves that we are doing the right things at the time.
I definitely have failed this week.
I don't regret linking to Peter Aranyi's post. Obviously reading it is going to be painful for some of the subjects of the post as it's impossible to separate the people from the events, I do get that. I do also ask though, that I be allowed to
I'm always going to have my own interpretation of what happened this week due to my own experiences, and they will influence the way I look at the issues, that can't be helped. I will try, however, to attribute purer motives to everyone involved, despite what my more paranoid side conjures up for me.
As I have said before, I don't respond well to what I consider to be emotional manipulation. It's a real button pusher for me, something that is likely to set me off when I think it's being done.
Hence, I don't like the practice of labeling someone "evil". A person can do evil acts, or acts which aren't necessarily evil, but have evil consequences, but they themselves cannot be "evil", they can only act in an evil manner.
To move forward, I would like to direct everyone to another one of Peter Aranyi's posts, on the ‘wider factors to consider’ in recent online gagging order, where he links to an article by Steven Price, who points out that the harassment case that is the subject of this post is ‘a radical judgement that bypasses defamation law’. Not being a lawyer, just a mere blogger, I found it instructive.