13 Comments

• eiriamach | Jan 12, 2011, 06:55 AM EST

  2BorNot2B, your list of complaints seems gratuitous. Why not just move on to a blog where you will not be annoyed at others' postings, or state that the others here are off topic and you have something on topic to say? It's difficult to know where to begin with your list, but to focus on your opening sentence, no one has written anything suggestive of relativism, except when I mentioned priests' words that seemed relative to time and place: the first priest I met in my youth, more than 30 years ago in NYC; the second--different time, different place--just a few years ago in Ireland. I have dealt with this charge of "relativism" repeatedly on IC, most completely on Cahir O'Doherty's Nov 22, '10 blog: " Let me hasten to add that I'm not a Kantian either. I offered a Kantian principle of moral reasoning simply to demonstrate that I am no relativist [as charged]." This "relativism" complaint is a patent example of the "either-or" fallacy: either X is an orthodox Catholic, or X is a relativist. Hogwash! It's an offensive claim, like calling me stupid. Do you folks tag others as relativists simply because relativism is easy to refute? It has begun to sound disingenuous. IC does not provide space for an epistemology lecture, but I do what I can to correct over-simplifications. Specifically which "moral rule" do you think derives from relativism? I'd be happy to give you objective reasons in support of it.

• SingleDonald | Jan 11, 2011, 07:34 PM EST

  eiriamach, I can't believe a priest would talk to a young lady like that; shame on him! BTW, when did that take place? I can't believe it was anytime recent. 2BorNot2B, You oversimplify things, as do all who think like you! The scriptures were written quite some time ago, and, as I have previously said, subject to many different interpretations. No deity should demonize male or female sexuality, and bring in all the guilt this causes. The Muslims certainly demonize female sexuality. I read how a girl who had been raped was killed by her own brother, in one of those Muslim countries! If she had consensual sex, I wonder if he would have tortured her first, then killed her! The Bible & Koran should not regulate people's every whim & natural desire! A more balanced view is needed when reading those tomes, one which recognizes the dignity of men & women. Also, humans should not be regarded as "evil sinners" for not following the narrow ideal which some seem to feel is the "law"!

• Searlit | Jan 11, 2011, 04:43 PM EST

  Most of all, God is love, and no one has ownership of him.

• 2BorNot2B | Jan 11, 2011, 04:01 PM EST

  Wow! Isn't life just peachy at the 'relativists-self-absolved and mutual-admiration-society Convention'...? everyone feeling so righteous, so justified and free of guilt; so very sure their personal opinion regarding moral rules, and what should or, frankly, should NOT constitute sin will... and really, if you ask.. MUST apply and be accepted by all; including God!!! Because... you know.. they thought about it, and all agree it should be so!--- After all, God is all about love and forgiveness; really, He is just a kind of 'benevolent, doddering old fool of a man up in the sky...or somewhere, they may, or may not meet (who knows if He is even there anyway!) when they finally kick the bucket!---- But wait, didn't He send a Son to earth who lived a life of virtue and righteousness meant to set an example for us? --- Didn't He also leave a whole body of teachings for us follow? --- Maybe He was just kidding.. Maybe they were not meant to apply for all times. Maybe He really did not mean what He said... I mean, some of the stuff is so difficult, so anachronistic.. it surely doesn't apply to the 21st C; after all, how would He know what our needs would be in modern times? --- But wasn't he God..? And if He was...He must have known! --- Not only that, but in order to demonstrate His committment to the mission He came to accomplish He sealed the deal by allowing Himself to be put through the most cruel and horrible death imaginable ("No one takes my life, I lay it down of my own free will. I have the power to lay it down and to raise it up again.."), so no one in the end might say: 'What did He know about human needs, passions..sin? He was God! -- Geez, if it were not all so confusing...

• Searlit | Jan 10, 2011, 07:01 PM EST

  I like your spirit, eiriamach! It's amazing, sometimes, how much you can learn from other people's posts, here.

• eiriamach | Jan 10, 2011, 06:24 PM EST

  Searlit and SingleDonald, confession crashed my respect for Catholic authority too. When the priest asked why I wasn't attending routine devotions at his church, I told him that I was a night student at university and had little time, but that I was keeping up a spiritual life by reading books by Thomas Merton. He began shouting at me: "I wouldn't let a nun read Merton except under the strictest supervision! You must CEASE that silliness, find some young man to marry and raise children with--that's what the Church wants from you, not going to college at night and not reading radicals like Merton!" I went to another church until I left that town. In 2006, an Irish priest was showing me around his monastery's library. When he reached the Merton cabinet, with its dozens of volumes translated into dozens of languages, I was mesmerized and could not move on from it. So he went to the desk and returned with a handful of check-out slips, gave them to me, and said, "Here, just check out as many books as you like from that cabinet and sign them back in when you return them." Yes! "Freedom," Martin Buber wrote, "I love its flashing face!"

• eiriamach | Jan 10, 2011, 05:58 PM EST

  Zeller's note left me thinking that to prevent suicide we need to make freedom much more real to afflicted people than it has seemed since 9/11 led to all the new security measures and the global economic crashes chilled the hopes of so many students I've known. "I really do wish I had another option," Zeller wrote, and it's too facile to say that he did have other options when that "darkness" always haunted him. I dream of a world with less power-tripping, fewer assertions of authority, more openness, more "can do" attitudes toward solving problems, more choices, real options (more like the 'sixties?). The next time I say 'no' to some authority freak or 'chill out' to some religious zealot, I intend to dedicate the gesture to BZ.

• Searlit | Jan 10, 2011, 02:13 PM EST

  Donald my time to doubt the veracity of the church happened early. When practicing for first communion. I had already been to confession a few days before and didn't have any new venial or mortal sins to report. I was told by one of the adults to make something up.

• SingleDonald | Jan 09, 2011, 10:14 PM EST

  I read Bill Zeller's last note. I strongly recommend it to anyone who did not suffer this kind of abuse, like myself. For a while, I was feeling that, as bad as it had been, it's time adults got over it. Now, I feel differently, especially if the child was very young, when it took place. You don't have to enter the long address listed below. Just type in: Bill Zeller, Princeton Suicide, and you will see many threads on the subject. Rest in Peace, Bill.

• cillowen | Jan 09, 2011, 05:58 PM EST

  nutty, the only outlet for the sick

• SingleDonald | Jan 09, 2011, 04:28 PM EST

  My feelings reflect Bill Zeller's, regarding human sexuality. Even though I was not abused, as a young kid, I was disturbed by the Catholic Church's stance. They taught that anything sexual, even thoughts, outside of marriage, was a "serious sin". This control freak authoritarianism inspires guilt, and over dependence on the priests, for absolution, in confession. Thus the growing boy or girl loses the ability to think for him/herself. There comes a time, though, when the boy or girl says, "Enough, this is all baloney!!" I like Bill Zeller's highlighting the word, "if". If God is not an ego maniac control freak, no disrespect, or blasphemy.

• grnd10ka | Jan 09, 2011, 02:04 PM EST

  I read his letter. RIP.

• eiriamach | Jan 08, 2011, 02:35 PM EST

  Today, after reading the suicide note of Bill Zeller of Princeton University, I think that we've focused enough on the pedophiles; the victims need and deserve far more attention. Looking back on his 23 years, he wrote, "Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up." About his work: "There's no future here. The darkness will always be with me." About his romantic relationships: "I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with." About the future: "I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time." His harshest words were for his fundamentalist Christian parents and for intolerant religions: "If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molesters go to Heaven (as long as they were 'saved' at some point), that's your choice, but it's f***ed up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, f*** Him." (I trust that God knows the meaning of that little 2-letter word "if"; no blasphemy there.) In a concluding paragraph he wrote, "I really do wish I had another option." He asked people to republish his note only in its entirety, but today's "Princetonian" gives excerpts of the 4,000-word document, available in full on Zeller's website: documents [dot] from [dot] bz [slash] note [dot] txt (fill in the dots and slash and leave no spaces).