VictorianLady

I meant my objection to that particular rule sounded Chestertonian. He seems to have been attracted to lost causes, and I'm about as bad.

It's practical experience with students in a school setting--observing, or--as is the case for this class--casual tutoring. I'm going to a middle school. Joy!

St. Augustine and Thomas of Aquinas came up with some standards for just war; they're not perfect, but they do make some good points. If you google "rules of just war" you should find them without much trouble; there are six "tests" that a war must supposedly pass in order to be just. The one stating that you must have a reasonable probability of success is the only one I really question. (That sounds a little too Chestertonian for comfort.)

"Except maybe being killed." That made me laugh.

I believe that C.S. Lewis pointed out that national pacifism would only result in the destruction of pacifists, since as soon as a nation was completely pacifist, everybody else would invade. It doesn't sound like K.C. is advocating pacifism exactly, but if everybody in a country submitted to invasion, probably none would be killed. Does she think resisting invasion is justified if no one would be killed provided they did not resist?

"Servants" in the KJV usually means "slaves." The Americans actually pushing for independence were not slaves, so that verse is irrelevant to the topic. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" isn't the whole verse; it ends with "and unto God the things that are God's." Sometimes people focus so much on the first part of that verse that they forget the importance of the second part, which clearly points out that Caesar's domain isn't the only domain there is. Another question from that verse: Did "Caesar" (or, in this case, the British Empire) have a right to the things it was taking? If not, the verse doesn't apply.

And the Americans did not just decide that they were tired of British rule for no reason. They were reacting to policies constricting the rights of self-rule that they were accustomed to. It was a very conservative revolution in that sense, which is why Edmund Burke supported it while later opposing the French Revolution. The Americans were being reactionaries more than true revolutionaries; the British were the real revolutionaries in this case.

The Americans also remembered the House of Stuart (Patrick Henry referenced it in his famous "Liberty or Death" speech, when a few restrictions on rights did eventually lead to a lot of death. How far would the British go? They couldn't be sure. If they allowed the British to go far enough that people's lives really were in danger, by then resistance would probably be too late. How far is K.C. willing to carry the non-resistance thing? Does K.C. think the Jews had a good idea in not fighting back against Hitler until he was literally trying to kill them all? Did it work? What about all the wars in the Bible? Should the Israelites have practiced non-resistance to the Philistines unless the Philistines were trying to kill them? Would that have worked?

The War for Independence is admittedly a sticky issue, but the Americans in general tried to do things peaceably until the first shot was fired (and no one knows by whom). The war started by accident. At that point, if they had not fought, then the Americans leaders, at least, would have been tried in England and probably hanged. So it may not have started as a life-and-death issue, but after the first (accidental) shot, it became one.

That's kind of a muddle of thoughts, but hopefully something in there will help.

Sure, I'll be here for another hour before I have to leave for practicum, so if I can help, I'd be glad to.

But I will have the last laugh. And as Priory said in the movie Candleshoe, "He who laughs last laughs... last." Not sure what that has to do with anything...

It would not take ten Telmarines to steal Glenburne's $100. I could do it myself, but I'm too noble. So watch what you wish for.

If I cared about the contents of this book, it might not be so bad. But most of this seems like a waste of time. I don't need to be told about peer groups and elementary school friendships and self-esteem!

But girls are good at holding grudges, or so I've heard...I've got a grudge against this Ed. Psych. book for being too wordy.

You can't....mwa-ha-ha-ha. (If only it sounded that good in real life. And did you have to marry me to that Emerson guy? Yuck.)

Sounds worse than the rendition of Cinderella I told my younger cousin--"Cinderella and the Muddy Flop-Flop Ball." (The ballroom is filled full of mud for the event, and the guests' goal is to flop as much as possible in the mud.)

Our local library has a book called Cinder Edna where Cinderella has all the usual things done and lives out her life bored in the palace, while Cinder Edna takes the bus to the ball, wears her loafers instead of glass slippers, marries the prince's younger brother, and lives a happy life with him, running an animal shelter. The moral of the story (I assume): traditional fairy tale characters should have been modernists.

I've only finished the first and second TT essays, so I haven't seen where he said believed in Santa Claus. (My fourth grade Sunday School teacher swore that he believed in Santa, too. He would have looked a lot like Santa, actually, if he had put on more weight.)

You keep forgetting to italicize The Ballad of the White Horse because you really need to take that PC English class you tested out of... I want to read that once I'm done TT.

I'm kind of in between Calvinism and Arminianism, but I wouldn't call either side heretical! Speakers that take it upon themselves to make an unclear issue into their personal foundation of belief always irk me...no wonder you were irritated.

Still need to read The Ballad of the White Horse. Am going through Tremendous Trifles right now. (It was hilarious when Chesterton remarked that the fairy tale that began his first essay, was, like most modern fairy tales, unfit for children.)

What exactly did the guest speaker say? (And am I right in assuming your signature is from a poem of Chesterton's?)

If Christianity was all pleasant, I think I'd have trouble believing it, to be honest. The world's not all marshmellow fluff!

Well--according to Wikepedia--what Kierkegaard believed was that people live in one of three realms--the aesthetic, the ethical, or the religious. People who live in the aesthetic realm live for pleasure alone, or follow societal conventions merely because they are conventions. (Rebels against society also fit into this sphere, since they aren't interested in reaching for nobler things.) The ethical sphere includes those who want to do right and really think about what is right, whatever the conventions of society are. Those in the religious sphere, a person must give entirely of himself to God. For Kierkegaard, a person should try to forge his own personal relationship with God--better to try and get things wrong than to merely follow convention and not make your own way. The personal relationship is more important than conventional morality or societal norms. The danger seems to be in that Kierkegaard's paradigm doesn't take the Bible into account. Yes, God shows things to us through the Holy Spirit, but He gave us His word as a guide so that we won't go majorly wrong. Kierkegaard seems more concerned that you make a choice about faith than if you make the right one, because you have to make a choice in order to be "authentic." The choice is made by comparing yourself with God and seeing where you don't meet His standard. But the Bible is supposed to help us do that, and Kierkegaard doesn't seem to be addressing the fact that God has already shown us how He wants us to live--we don't have to figure out everything on our own. If we do, we're bound to get a lot wrong because of our sinful nature (never mind our Enemy!) when we could be getting most of it right. (Now that I know all that, I think I actually know a Christian existentialist on these forums, although the C.E. may not realize what the C.E. is.)

Puddleglum is trying to avoid being enchanted. He can't think straight or hardly remember life above the surface. He's not concerned with making a choice to be "authentic." His choice was already made before he ever left his wigwam. He chose Aslan because he believed Aslan to be real. He did not really believe the Witch's lies, but--since he could not use reason to refute her arguments--he defies her on the basis of his faith, which is--like Chesterton said--higher than reason. However, I don't think he would have had faith in Aslan had he seriously thought, while not under enchantment, that Aslan didn't exist. (And I certainly wouldn't try to form a relationship with a god I didn't believe in. That's worse than being a five-year-old with an invisible friend. Jesus always appealed to the reason of his hearers. So did the Early Church Fathers, whose faith Kierkegaard was trying to return to by creating Christian existentialism.)

It sounds like the guy in your class hasn't been arguing for faith above reason, but for faith without reason--which is frankly unreasonable. In my opinion, anyway. He sounds mixed up--even more than Kierkegaard. About those innermost longings--does believing in hell satisfy his innermost longings? I hope not!

Sorry--I meant to make that message fairly short, and I just wrote an epistle.

Christian existentialist? How does that work? I've read that Kierkegaard was one, but I never quite understood how you could adopt Christianity as a sort of personal mythology. Am I getting that mixed up?

I'm sure--P. H. being P. H.--you'll be way ahead of me on Plato before long.

I just read Gilgamesh last weekend for an ancient history class--I should look it over again. I was a little dumbfounded when it was the sort of woman it was who "civilized" Enkidu. I personally think he was better off before, but it seems like that sort of thing didn't bother any of the ancient peoples--or if it didn't, that doesn't show much in their mythology. Just started looking up a bit of Norse mythology last week--a newly-written folk song got me into it--and, although I like the Ragnarok (a sort of Armageddon) idea--the parallels with Revelation are interesting--even the supposedly good gods were pretty immoral. (I didn't realize while reading Surprised by Joy that Loki was the Norse god of evil. Lewis really was having problems as a teen if he wrote an epic with Loki as the hero.)

I guess I got two main things out of Gilgamesh--the value of close friendships between men, and the futility of finding eternal life. Had to read something from Epicurus today where he was saying something similar--stop wasting time thinking about eternal life! Death means nothing, anyway! It's pretty sad.

I'm supposed to write a paper eventually on the parallels between Noah and the Noah-figure in Gilgamesh, but it's not due for a while.