A religio-political tangent

As much as there ever was a primary thread.

I’m working on another book. Well, three or four of them, nominally in parallel. Because one at a time would be to simple 8-0… Anyway, I’m not much of a biblical scholar, but there are a series of related topics that are not “easy look-up” sorts of subjects on Catholic church teachings, monastic order traditions, and canon that I need to know so I don’t make too many , er, “fundamental” errors on the faith and teachings. If you know something about the Bible, and perhaps are a regular church-goer who would like to see that a SF books gets the basic correct and would like to weigh in a few thoughts, head on over to Not A Biblical Scholar and add your two cents worth.

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8 thoughts on “A religio-political tangent

    • Yes, I’ve run it by Peter in the past; he’s the sort that would know. He implied he was pretty busy with his own writing, and while he’s not said anything explicitly about it, I get the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that it’s something he’s not comfortable with. I can only speculate why that is, if I am inferring things correctly.

      I’ve heard of neanderpundit, dropped by a few times, not highly familiar with him. Maybe I’ll run it by him. Thanks for the idea.

  1. There are a) the Christian religions, and then there are b) the sayings of Jesus, and you will find significant differences between a and b. It may not be very relevant to your purpose, here is everything Jesus is reported to have said, in context;
    http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/csj/

    I was raised Catholic, to the point of having been imprisoned in summer school while other kids were out living life, and those texts contain several surprises now that I’m beginning to understand them. And several significant contradictions with what the religions teach and practice.

    So it depends on what you’re looking to understand; the message of Jesus or religious doctrine. One largely nullifies the other, sort of like our U. S. Constitution on one hand and politicians on the other, respectively. Yes; very much like that actually.

    Put that in your book and smoke it ; )

    • Well, I AM planning on making them a sort of heretic sect, one that causes a lot of heat and argument within the upper ranks, but have a mission that the Pope of the time finds useful. So lots of contrariness is not a bad thing – indeed, it’s a very good thing – as long as the groundings are not made up from whole cloth.
      Thanks for the source.

      • “…one that causes a lot of heat and argument within the upper ranks…”

        Cool, well that’s what Jesus did and of course they murdered him for it, so he was a scandalous figure, so to speak, right from the get-go. Interesting to me is that the local Roman government didn’t have so much a problem with him as the religious leaders.

    • A possibly very useful source. The major problem is, of course, time to invest in research versus time spent writing. Certainly a good reference to double-check things.

      The issue is that I juuuuust enough to get myself into trouble. I have enough knowledge of parts of things, but some items that I’d like to poke at are one that may have major weakness that need to be either addressed with rational argument or dismissed in some way as irrelevant, but not simply ignored. A lot of people look at the whole “turn the other cheek” thing and think that’s as far as it goes. I need to be able to refute that solidly. And while it’s easy to lay the biblical groundwork for establishing a family, making that argument to a young and recovering-from-being-messed-up man, why he should take the risks, and how to be worth the risk, in ordinary language, will be rather harder. Going “Old Testament” with the bad guys, using modern arms, without going totally old testament on everything else, will be a fine balancing act, and one I’m not exactly up to doing on my own at this time.

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