Here's another article I found online on the website "catholicism.org" that I found quite thought-provoking as well:
"The Decline of Controversy" by Bishop Fulton Sheen
http://catholicism.o...ontroversy.html
I don't agree with everything in the article, but I think it's worth consideration. Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:
"The hardest thing to find in the world today is an argument. Because so few are thinking, naturally there are found but few to argue. There is prejudice in abundance and sentiment too, for these things are born of enthusiasms without the pain of labor. Thinking, on the contrary, is a difficult task; it is the hardest work a man can do—that is perhaps why so few indulge in it."
"...those periodicals that pride themselves upon their open-mindedness on all questions are far from practicing the lost art of controversy. Their pages contain no controversies, but only presentations of points of view. These never rise to the level of abstract thought in which argument clashes with argument like steel with steel, but rather they content themselves with the personal reflections of one who has lost his faith, writing against the sanctity of marriage, and of another who has kept his faith, writing in favor of it.
Both sides are shooting off firecrackers, making all the noise of an intellectual warfare and creating the illusion of conflict, but it is only a sham battle in which there are plenty of explosions but never an exploded argument."
"Modern religion has enunciated one great and fundamental dogma that is at the basis of all the other dogmas: that religion must be freed from dogmas. Creeds and confessions of faith are no longer the fashion; religious leaders have agreed not to disagree and those beliefs for which some of our ancestors would have died they have melted into a spineless humanism. Like other Pilates they have turned their backs on the uniqueness of truth and have opened their arms wide to all the moods and fancies the hour might dictate. The passing of creeds and dogmas means the passing of controversies. Creeds and dogmas are social; prejudices are private. Believers bump into one another at a thousand different angles, but bigots keep out of one another’s way, because prejudice is anti-social. I can imagine an old-fashioned Calvinist who holds that the word “damn” has a tremendous dogmatic significance coming to intellectual blows with an old-fashioned Methodist who holds that it is only a curse word. But I cannot imagine a controversy if both decide to damn damnation, like modernists who no longer believe in hell."
I have had the impression for some time that there have been "plenty of explosions" occurring in various LDS-related "camps" on the internet, but very little in the way of real dialogue between the camps. It appears that some of these camps have actually preferred it that way (for example John Dehlin, considering his attempts at suppressing Greg Smith's article.) However, I think much good has come from this latest "controversy." Much has been revealed and dialogue that has been sorely needed is starting to occur. All it took was some polemics (or rather the anticipation of it). I look forward to the more substantial dialogue that will occur whenever Greg Smith's article is published.
0
This topic is locked
juliann, on 28 June 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:
