Giving credit where credit is due
Now and then, I get emails from people with questions or comments about my (incomplete) webpage about the White Rose. For the most part, I enjoy answering and commenting as I can, because I'm glad that there are people out there who have an interest.
Last week, I received an email from somebody who had just visited the site. He has a webpage which mentions the White Rose, and he wanted me to consider posting a link to his site.
I followed the link, and basically, there was only a little blurb about the White Rose, which was followed by conjecture about how they would see that now as the greatest evil or some such. The website was hosted on a site that had 'calvin' in the URL, and as I looked around the rest of the pages, with its multiple denouncements of the Roman Catholic Church, I was thoroughly confused as to why he would even mention the White Rose on his page, considering how strongly the group was influenced by Roman Catholic priests & thinkers.
I wrote this man an email with this question, and this morning I received a response which included this little gem "[T]he great example that the White Rose set does not mean I endorse the theology of their members or those who influenced them and I would never-ever endorse-even backhandedly the Mother of Harlots-the RC institution-whose hands are dripping with the blood of the saints..."
I'm sorry, but even for people whose religion or beliefs I don't 'subscribe' to, I have no problem respecting them for being people who have followed that faith when it leads them to work toward something better. If someone is Hindi, for example, and their faith leads them to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc, I have respect for that and that it is their faith that leads and supports them in that. It's not that I agree with their theology, but that I recognize that they are living examples of the good of their beliefs. To extrapolate that somebody of faith does good in spite of what they believe simply because you do not want to give that differing view *any* credence is blind, and serves as an attempt to undercut the principles which these people have served. (Then again, in this day in age, living a principled life seems to have become an "old-fashioned" idea.) To me, it's not even an ideological issue, but something that can be boiled down to giving credit where credit is due, and to see how vehemently this was denied makes me think that there is something seriously wrong in this person's cognition (at least on this subject).
Last week, I received an email from somebody who had just visited the site. He has a webpage which mentions the White Rose, and he wanted me to consider posting a link to his site.
I followed the link, and basically, there was only a little blurb about the White Rose, which was followed by conjecture about how they would see that now as the greatest evil or some such. The website was hosted on a site that had 'calvin' in the URL, and as I looked around the rest of the pages, with its multiple denouncements of the Roman Catholic Church, I was thoroughly confused as to why he would even mention the White Rose on his page, considering how strongly the group was influenced by Roman Catholic priests & thinkers.
I wrote this man an email with this question, and this morning I received a response which included this little gem "[T]he great example that the White Rose set does not mean I endorse the theology of their members or those who influenced them and I would never-ever endorse-even backhandedly the Mother of Harlots-the RC institution-whose hands are dripping with the blood of the saints..."
I'm sorry, but even for people whose religion or beliefs I don't 'subscribe' to, I have no problem respecting them for being people who have followed that faith when it leads them to work toward something better. If someone is Hindi, for example, and their faith leads them to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc, I have respect for that and that it is their faith that leads and supports them in that. It's not that I agree with their theology, but that I recognize that they are living examples of the good of their beliefs. To extrapolate that somebody of faith does good in spite of what they believe simply because you do not want to give that differing view *any* credence is blind, and serves as an attempt to undercut the principles which these people have served. (Then again, in this day in age, living a principled life seems to have become an "old-fashioned" idea.) To me, it's not even an ideological issue, but something that can be boiled down to giving credit where credit is due, and to see how vehemently this was denied makes me think that there is something seriously wrong in this person's cognition (at least on this subject).