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Most people of my acquaintance, of various races, colors, religious convictions if any, sexual preferences and so forth are agreed that it is impertinent for someone else to determine to foist some definition of his own choosing on other human beings (the obvious exception is the generally accepted one that parents name their children).

That said, and while I remain thoroughly of the view that epithets (which are best defined by those on the receiving end - one would not take the Ku Klux Klan seriously if they were to claim that they use a certain word for African Americans because it is scientifically neutral, nor are most Catholics willing to take C.S. Lewis's excuse for calling us "papists" only be cause that way he did not have to choose between "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic"), if one must indulge one's emotions in such ways, I prefer verbal assaults to egg-throwing and other forms of violence.

Incognitus

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Originally posted by incognitus:
[QB] Most people of my acquaintance, of various races, colors, religious convictions if any, sexual preferences and so forth
Most Christians of my acquantance know that the qualities of ones races, colors, religious convictions and so forth are in no way comparable to "sexual preferences," i.e., gay or lesbian, and that attempts to slyly insert such a claim are part and parcel of the homosexual agenda ityself.

And the term "sodomite" is not an epithet, except to those living in sodomy.

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Ingonitus:

No, I was just wondering if you had a job, owned a car and a house.

I served in the Air Force during Viet Nam, and I don't have those things. You are looking for amnesty for your protests during the Viet Nam war. As far as I'm concerned you already have your amnesty.

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Dear Mike,
No, I am not looking for an amnesty from anybody for anything; to the best of my knowledge no public authorities anywhere are looking for me. But I'm curious to know what eventually developed along the line of an amnesty.

Since you have given an understandable reason for inquiring, no, I do not own a house or car. I'm sorry to learn that you don't either, and I offer my poor prayers that you may succeed in having them. As to myself, it's not that I'm non-acquistive or lacking in ambition; it's just that what money I can get my hands on is likelier to go into books than anything else.

If for any reason you are still hurt by the views and activities of those who protested the Vietnam War, I can't offer you very much apart from the assurance that I and my friends and associates were quite honestly sincere in our opposition to that war, and that I do not question your own honesty and sincerity. At this late date, it is perhaps best that we agree to disagree.

Wars can be funny things. I had occasion to visit Germany a couple of times (my dad fought in the US Army in World War II and I have NO use for Nazis) and after seeing the affluence of Germany, I have a question: if they lost the war, who won? Thirty years later, or whatever it is, it seems fairly clear that the US "lost" the Vietnam War, but not at all clear who, if anybody, won.

You've set me thinking - forgive me; rambling thoughts are among my vices. I remember that on the day that the Vietnam War finally ended I had already been back in grad school for a year or so, after some time away from academia. Anyway, I was on my way to class when the news came over the radio that the war was at last over. The strange part of it for me personally is that at that moment, I just had no emotional reaction at all. Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.

But to stop rambling and get back to the present: neither one of us is personally in need of an amnesty. What each of us needs is to allow ourselves to accept the passage of time, and the realization that we truly can be at peace with one another without asking each other to repudiate his thoughts and activities of thirty or thirty-five years ago.

For the sake of Christ, forgive me.

Incognitus

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How many people have been brought to Christ, versus turned away, by a Christian publically calling them a ... sodomite?
Doc, From your response - completely unresponsive to the question - I gather that you lack interst in actual assesment of the efficacy of your approach.

That's a clanging bell, not a polemicist.

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Originally posted by djs:
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How many people have been brought to Christ, versus turned away, by a Christian publically calling them a ... sodomite?
Doc, From your response - completely unresponsive to the question - I gather that you lack interst in actual assesment of the efficacy of your approach.

That's a clanging bell, not a polemicist.
Actually, it is BECAUSE of the efficacy of this approach, i.e., refusing to buy into the euphemistic lies and presenting the Truth, that the gay agenda promoters don't like it.

The single most effective method of turning people away from supporting "legal" abortions is the use of life-like ultrasounds juxtaposed with the images of aborted babies.

Likewise the single most effective method of fighting and turning back the homosexual juggernaut it to reveal the reality of sodomy, its effects on the body, and its supporters ultimate agenda.

There is a difference between fighting the Culture Wars to turn back the tide of deviancy engulfing our country, and evangelizing and trying to save sodomites.

Both need done, desperately. Some are called to one and not the other fight.

If you don't like my approach, don't read my posts. But when it comes to efficacy, your approach confirms homosexuals in their deviancy, mine does not, and only God will judge which one is just or charitable or effective.

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If you don't like my approach, don't read my posts. But when it comes to efficacy, your approach confirms homosexuals in their deviancy, mine does not, and only God will judge which one is just or charitable or effective.
I will read and comment on what I please, subject to the rules of the forum implemented by the administrators.

If you would read Mills with some introspection you might better understand the posts that disagree with yours, and understand that that disagreement cannot simply be dismissed as dissent or a betrayal of orthodox - as you characterize it elsewhere.

You still are evasive on my specific question on efficacy: How many individuals have been brought to Christ, versus turned away, by a Christian publicly calling them a ... sodomite?

Yes, God will judge. That reminder usually evokes some circumspection in Catholics. Some fear and trembling about getting it right. You seem immune to that - as evidenced most dramtically in your facile, simplistic judgment of BC's.
https://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002405;p=1#000009
Where does this presumption come from?

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Originally posted by djs:
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If you don't like my approach, don't read my posts. But when it comes to efficacy, your approach confirms homosexuals in their deviancy, mine does not, and only God will judge which one is just or charitable or effective.
I will read and comment on what I please, subject to the rules of the forum implemented by the administrators.

If you would read Mills with some introspection you might better understand the posts that disagree with yours, and understand that that disagreement cannot simply be dismissed as dissent or a betrayal of orthodox - as you characterize it elsewhere.

You still are evasive on my specific question on efficacy: How many individuals have been brought to Christ, versus turned away, by a Christian publicly calling them a ... sodomite?

Yes, God will judge. That reminder usually evokes some circumspection in Catholics. Some fear and trembling about getting it right. You seem immune to that - as evidenced most dramtically in your facile, simplistic judgment of BC's.
https://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002405;p=1#000009
Where does this presumption come from?
Obviously, Dan Lauffer and others here see through your guise. You two are apologists for and advocates of the homosexual agenda.

You use their propagandistic language and talking points, and instead of responding to the substance of other peoples' posts, you engage in ad hominem attack.

And you do so knowing that the moderators don't have the strength of conviction to filially correct you.

You are masters of the gay rights play book.

I don't accept that, and I point out its damnable hypocrisy anywhere I run across it.

Again, if you don't like what I have to say, ignore my posts.

But knock off the ad hominem attacks.
Quote
Originally posted by djs:
[QB] [QUOTE]
How many individuals have been brought to Christ, versus turned away, by a Christian publicly calling them a ... sodomite?
There are far more souls in danger of perdition from Catholics failing to fight the homosexual agenda than there are souls open to repenting and believing and leaving the sodomist lifestyle.

Therefore, my time is better spent fighting your agenda.

While others have made it their mission and apostolate to evangelize sodomites to bring them out of their mortally sinful and physically morbid lifestyles, God has called others to fight the homosexual agenda juggernaut.

So you make a false dichotomy.

One group can evangelize sodomites while others try to fight back the sodomites' obvious agenda and propaganda, to protect the culture at large and prevent the sodomists from recruiting more unsuspecting souls into their deviant lifestyle.

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Obviously, Dan Lauffer and others here see through your guise. You two are apologists for and advocates of the homosexual agenda.
You use their propagandistic language and talking points, and instead of responding to the substance of other peoples' posts...
You are masters of the gay rights play book.
I point out its damnable hypocrisy ...
Quote
knock off the ad hominem attacks.
biggrin biggrin biggrin

More seriously, I object to your libeling of the moderators, who have in fact have had occasion to correct me and have not been shy about it. I also object to the idea that I am unresponsive. When you have asked questions I have responded.

Quote
So you make a false dichotomy
I think there is some merit in this point. I had previously posted on three approaches that one might take on this matter. And I agree some may be called to one or another of the approaches (and I note that you did respond to Lawrence's call to prayer). You might like to consider such a diversity of charism for others too, btw. Nevertheless the question still stands: is your labeling approach a net plus or minus in the overall battle. What makes you so sure that it's a plus; what makes you so sure that this situation is not one that calls for the manner of Christ with the adulteress? I think this is a fair question.

ps I have read some of your articles, for example the one on diseases among homosexuals - that was really very good, I thought. But, do I recall correctly that the term you used was homosexual not sodomite?

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Interesting � in a response to djs (with a reference to �you two� which appears to refer to me as well) Doc Brian exhorts us to �knock off the ad hominem attacks�.

He also, in the same post, writes that �the moderators don't have the strength of conviction to filially correct you.� If that isn�t an ad hominem attack on the moderators, I don�t know what would be. And as for the suggestion that the moderators should �filially correct� djs and/or myself, I don�t know whether any of the moderators are members of djs�s family, but none of them are children of mine, so any correction they might care to offer me would be fraternal, not filial.

Doc Brian, still in the same post, writes that �You two are apologists for and advocates of the homosexual agenda.� Once again, this is clearly an ad hominem attack. I am an apologist for and advocate of basic social civility, as articulated very well by Father John Courtney Murray.

Doc Brian continues �You use their propagandistic language and talking points�. If so � and I don�t believe it to be so � that is no more than coincidence unless, of course, people who advocate whatever the �homosexual agenda� may be also advocate civility, in which case they deserve commendation. Civility is a good thing.

There�s more, but I will give only one last quote from Doc Brian �You are masters of the gay rights play book.� I am not only not a master of such a book, I am unaware of its existence and I doubt that Doc Brian could supply a bibliographic reference for a book with such a title.

Finally Doc Brian invites us not to read his posts if we don�t like them. As a recently deceased (requiescat in pace) defender of the Tridentine Mass aptly remarked, people who of set purpose only read things that they already know that they agree with need not trouble themselves to read anything at all.

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ATTENTION MIKE C.

Dear Mike,
If I'm being a nuisance, please forgive me. I just saw a 45 minute film which called you strongly to my thoughts - it's a National Geographic film, made in 2001, but I'd not seen it until tonight. Title is something like "The Secret War". Anyway, it's about two photographers, one from each side - the American was Tim Page, and the North Vietnamese was something like Dong Tin. Anyway, each of them had worked - separately, of course - during the Vietnam War taking photographs; it appears that Tim Page was also able to take some motion pictures. National Geographic had the bright idea to bring the two together on a return visit to what was then South Vietnam.

I remembered some of the pictures from all those years ago, and the pictures are still harrowing. But what was of great interest was the overwhelming welcome the two men received - much to their own surprise - in the places that they visited. They brought along lots of photographs and displayed them; in many cases it turned out that a picture was the last picture, or even the only picture, of someone who had been killed. As you can imagine, this meant having lots of reproductions of the pictures made quickly so that copies could be given to the relatives and friends of the deceased.

Each of them recounted some of his experiences during the war. Tim Page was very nearly killed and in fact lost a quarter of his brain when he inadvertently stepped on a mine. Dong Tin was the only photographer from either side who made it into Quang Tri for the spring 1972 siege of the citadel, so he had no bed of roses. That they could even speak to each other, let alone become friends, seems miraculous.

Thought you might want to know of this. If you've not seen the film and would like to, probably this can be arranged with National Geographic.

Incognitus

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As a recently deceased (requiescat in pace) defender of the Tridentine Mass aptly remarked, people who of set purpose only read things that they already know that they agree with need not trouble themselves to read anything at all.

Incognitus [/QB]
So Catholics should pollute their minds with lies, all in the name of fairness and civility? That quite some Gospel you preach.

From Recovering the Art of Christian Polemics

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St. John and St. Polycarp spoke the way they did because every word matters when you are talking about Jesus. One word is true, and another word, which may be a very similar word, is false. The right word leads to Jesus, the wrong word leads away from Him. Jesus is of one being with the Father, not of like being. He is the Son of the Father, not a son of the Father. He is begotten, not made.

Therefore those who say the wrong words, and keep saying them after the authorities have corrected them, proclaim a Jesus who does not exist, and thereby endanger the souls of men who want to meet Him. The Jesuses they present almost always look a lot like the real Jesus, especially to those who do not know Him very well.

And they are usually very good spokesmen for the Jesus they've invented. Men of this sort are almost always compelling teachers, who offer a Jesus designed to be what many of their hearers expect or want. The successful heretic knows how to design his product to sell in the religious market, and many people will like his Jesus a lot more than the real one.

People who are so good at offering the world a fake Jesus must be rebuked and corrected by those, pastors and writers particularly, who have the gifts to do so. They will sometimes have to speak a hard word, in the mode of St. John or St. Polycarp. They will sometimes have to explain that Smith is wrong and that Jones is a false teacher and that Wilson is an enemy of the Faith.

This is a way they minister to those placed within their care. The writer is his readers' shepherd for as long as they read his work, whether or not he wants to be. Both pastor and writer speak mainly to lead their sheep to water and grass, but they will also speak to guard them from the wolves, to make sure that the sheep live long enough to reach the water and the grass. They know that many of their sheep will not recognize a wolf on sight, and left on their own might invite the wolf home to dinner, only to find, too late, that they are the main course.

Because the pastor or writer wants his sheep to get to the water and grass whole and unharmed, he must teach them about wolves, and point out as many wolves as he can. It is the job God has given him to do. It comes with the gifts God has given him.

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As a recently deceased (requiescat in pace) defender of the Tridentine Mass aptly remarked, people who of set purpose only read things that they already know that they agree with need not trouble themselves to read anything at all.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So Catholics should pollute their minds with lies... That quite some Gospel you preach.
Not much is really necessary to read.

But in this age, when so much information and even more disinformation is available, it is not a bad idea to take a broad look at what is going on.

And that's not a bad agenda. Develop skill in reasoning and diligence in comprehensive collection of provable facts. This will lead to truth, which never, as JPII said, contradicts Truth.

The idea of blocking out ostensible facts and arguments in circulation is risky. Eventually they seep in. And if one is unprepared to deal with them - then there will be trouble.

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When Doc Brian announced his imminent departure, I knew it was too good to be true.

Doc Brian - there is nobody who can force you to read anything you don't want to read. You may be as antiliterate as you like. I can no more force you to read the analysis offered by Father John Courney Muray than I can force to you watch Inherit the Wind. But there are MANY people who will object strenuously to the notion that you have some divine mission to determine what others are allowed to read.

Your remarkably one-track crusade causes me to suspect that something is terrifying you. I have no idea what that may be, nor do I care to speculate on the subject. Fanatics, ultimately, are boring.

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Your remarkably one-track crusade causes me to suspect that something is terrifying you. I have no idea what that may be, nor do I care to speculate on the subject. Fanatics, ultimately, are boring.
As I said, you revel in ad hominem.

You make sure you get in the last word, now, ok?

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