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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Nuns gone wild!

I’ve already commented on some other examples of Armstrong’s ignorant prooftexting. Here’s another case in point:

DAVE ARMSTRONG SAID:

“Hays and his buddies tried to make the argument that the custom of wearing sackcloth was simply a Semitic custom of those times (using the merely ‘anthropological’ approach that liberals are notorious for), or that it was for mourning only, and in no sense prescribed by God. . . . .How odd, then, that the prophet Isaiah, speaking on behalf of God (as prophets are wont to do), recommends (‘prescribes’?) the wearing of sackcloth (Is 32:11)... It is only anti-Catholic Bible students today who can't see the obvious.”

Okay, let’s play along with the “obvious” implications of Armstrong’s prooftexting.

Here’s the full text: “Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist” (Isa 32:11).

As one leading commentator explains:

“It appears that it was typical for women in the ancient Near East to bare their breasts in mourning and put sackcloth about their waists. This custom explains the reference here,” J. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1–39 (Eerdmans 1988), 585.

Since dear old Dave likes to tout his (tenuous) connections with Mother Angelica, perhaps he should produce a Spring Break video of the Poor Clares.

22 comments:

  1. You guys are pigs. I used to have a scintilla of respect for you. No more. In a more civilized age somebody would challenge you swine to pistols at dawn.

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  2. Mark,

    I drew a logical conclusion from a premise supplied by Dave Armstrong. Explain where the logic breaks down.

    BTW, you might consider redirecting your pistol at all the bishops who facilitated the priestly abuse scandal. But, of course, Catholics are more offended by symbolism than substance.

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  3. "You guys are pigs. I used to have a scintilla of respect for you. No more. In a more civilized age somebody would challenge you swine to pistols at dawn."

    So in a Roman Catholic world all disputes would end up with someone dead? Nothing's changed in 1500 years.

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  4. "In a more civilized age somebody would challenge you swine to pistols at dawn."

    In a brighter age somebody would explain a reductio to you rather than serving as your second.

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  5. TF, it ain't the reductio that's objectionable. If it needs explaining what is, ask Mr. Bugay, who seems to have an inkling.

    " of course, Catholics are more offended by symbolism than substance."

    Your guesswork fails you (I'm not sure why you resort to guesswork to tell what does or doesn't offend people, but whatever). Mr. Shea was outraged by the scandal, as you'd know if you read his blog.

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  6. While I agree with Shea that your people are swine, Shea once again displays his ignorance for Catholic moral teaching. Duels are immoral...period.

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  7. This post really lacks tact. I'm a Catholic, but I wanted to take a closer look at the Protestant arguments. Thus, I recently subscribed to your blog in order to start hearing "the other side.

    All this post does is make me want to unsubscribe. I know you're not here to impress me, but if you really care about the souls of Catholics, you shouldn't take such tasteless cheap shots.

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  8. If they can't refute you, they'll try to shame you. Anything to shut you up.

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  9. JAMES SAID:

    "Your guesswork fails you (I'm not sure why you resort to guesswork to tell what does or doesn't offend people, but whatever). Mr. Shea was outraged by the scandal, as you'd know if you read his blog."

    He was only offended by the consequences, not the causes.

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  10. "Mr. Shea was outraged by the scandal, as you'd know if you read his blog."

    Actually, I regularly read Mr. Shea's aptly subtitled blog ("Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!") and I'm well aware of his regular outbursts of outrage against anyone with whom he disagrees from Ms. Janice Krauss (and those who talk about the problem of neo-Catholics) to more traditional Roman Catholics like Mr. Robert Sungenis, to those who advocate the use of waterboarding (which seems to correspond with his general intolerance of the "rubber hose right"), to those he calls "Abortion Whores" and of course, far more vile to Shea, Calvinists. I'm sure I must have left out some one or more of Shea's favorite targets for his rage, but the list above should help you see that I'm familiar with his blogging.

    He's not outraged by scandal in general. He not only republishes scandal within his own communion (example - warning, not safe for work or children), but also is fond of posting pieces that highlight sexual scandal by anyone other than priests (long list here)

    And yes - he can't handle hard-edged satire and reductio applied to his positions, although he loves to use similar techniques directed toward others.

    So, while (as far as I know) Mark's welcome to come back here among the swine and clarify why he harbors murderous thoughts toward us, I'm willing to say it's not because his delicate eyes were reasonably offended by the idea of a nun following ancient Semitic mourning practices.

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  11. "If they can't refute you, they'll try to shame you. Anything to shut you up."

    Can't speak for the other Catholics, but I'm not trying to stop anyone from making an argument. The "Girl's Gone Wild" and the actual suggestion of mother Angelica were what I thought was in bad taste. The argument could have been made without them.

    Do none on this side of the Tiber even understand why we might be a tad insulted?

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  12. "Do none on this side of the Tiber even understand why we might be a tad insulted?"

    Sounds like it was more than a tad.

    But personally, I am more offended and insulted at a system that would cause a poor old nun to wear a spiked strap across her thigh, and then justify it by perverting scriptures that obviously have a different meaning.

    That is truly an offense against the cross, human dignity, and God's revelation. All the post did was demonstrate the absurdity of it by painting an absurd picture that was logically consequent from the argument presented.

    So no, I don't understand the ordering of priorities here. I wonder though, if it wasn't a nun, if it was "lay-women gone wild", whether you would have the same reaction, and if not, why?

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  13. Knowing the way that Catholics spooftext the Bible, Mark Shea's comments ripping Steve's words out of context comes as no surprise.

    Steve was using Dave Armstrong's own standards and reducing it to absurdity.

    He wasn't actually suggesting that it happen.

    But again, this sort of simple-mindedness is exactly what I have come to expect out of Catholic apologists.

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  14. Steve: "He was only offended by the consequences, not the causes."

    Do you have reason to believe that other than malice?

    TF: I notice in amongst all that you couldn't actually explicitly deny that Mr. Shea was outraged at the child abuse scandal (nor could any long-time reader, without considerable dishonesty), so I'll take that as a kind of grudging admission.

    "...he can't handle hard-edged satire and reductio applied to his positions... I'm willing to say it's not because his delicate eyes were reasonably offended by the idea of a nun following ancient Semitic mourning practices..."

    I am unsure if you are being obtuse or simply dishonest here, but just in case it's the former: it's not the reductio, which could have been put otherwise. It's the deliberate lascivious overtones in the putting of it.

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  15. JAMES SAID:

    "TF: I notice in amongst all that you couldn't actually explicitly deny that Mr. Shea was outraged at the child abuse scandal..."

    Crocodile tears from a company man who will defend to the death the very institution which is inevitably and unaccountably responsible for these outrages.

    How many complicit bishops have been defrocked as a result of this crisis? Can you even count them on the fingers of one hand?

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  16. To all you fine Catholics wishing to jump on board and waterboard our dear friend Steve, not to get any forced admissions out of him but rather to force him to shut up, let me ask you why you don't all hire Philippine Airlines to fly you all over to Manila Philippines and protest to the Cardinal over there for having a well painted painting of "naked , full frontal nude virgin teen girls with chains on their ankles, weeping, while they wait their turn "TO BE RAPED BY CONQUISTODORS"; the fruits of their conquests, I suppose, so prominently displayed on the wall, while gauwkers are standing with puzzled looks and shock, admiring that painting with others of their own personal portfolio of paintings and other inhumane relics of the historicity of the RCC on display as well? Hmmmmm, they conquered the Philippinos and this is how they remind them of that conquest? Doesn't that seem a bit off the wall, to use the pun intended?


    Go ahead and reduce that logic down and let us know your justification for that reasoning? Is it darkness in the will of man? What then, is it?

    And while you are at it, why not fly down to Guatemala on TACA Airlines in mass and go to the ancient capital and to that massive cathedral there and ask why that dungeon like hole in the ground, with a running water source running through it, that recently was found some years ago by hired carpenters hired to do some remodeling of that area inside the gates, an area hidden away from public scrutiny, there, finding graves full of the smallest bones of newborns, several dozen grave sites? They estimate these bones date back a couple two or three centuries and this place was where the babies ended up after the nuns gave birth to them? The speculations run wild in my head, [nuns and priests gone wild], just how virgin nuns could give birth to babies while serving the Lord, there? Hmmmmm? What does that imply, if you are willing to reduce it down, please tell us?

    Might I suggest that the priest scandals of late have their roots well placed in the long dark history of the church we know as the RCC covering up misdeeds of their finest servants!

    And then go...., go...., go...., to many other fortresses of the RCC and explain the lack of charities there in the face of their own controlled spatial behaviors, on the streets of many a poor soil they brought their gospel too? Doesn't speak well for them or you these days, "love thy neighbor as thyself", does it?

    Want more?

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  17. Watch Armstrong rewrite history to his own advantage.

    “Let's not forget, in all our rightful, perfectly understandable detestation of Hays' antics (which are nothing new) that he has also successfully switched the discussion over to other topics, lest anyone catch the fact that he was completely defeated on the exegetical plane. There is, after all, a theological dispute here, that he actually started, by mocking Venerable Pope John Paul II's ascetic practices. I responded with Scripture and then it was off to the dog races. We need to take note at what has happened, as an example of the ongoing obtuse anti-Catholic foolishness. Hays had claimed (back when he still deigned to offer rational argument) that the sackcloth passages were merely DE-scriptive, and not PRE-scriptive.”

    i) I didn’t take any position on whether or not sackcloth was ever prescriptive. Rather, I pointed that that Dave failed to distinguish different kinds of passages. And different genres.

    ii) And that’s part of his modus operandi. He simply hurls a lot of stuff against the wall hoping that some of it will stick. He hopes the reader will be overwhelmed with the cumulative effect of copy/paste verses.

    Dave makes no effort to classify different ttypes of verses, or offer a serious interpretation. It’s just a snow job.

    iii) By the same token, he constantly engages in a bait-and-switch. Acting as if a prescriptive passage applies to a descriptive passage. Acting as if a passage about sackcloth is synonymous with self-flagellation. Acting as if a passage about sackcloth either underwrites, or is underwritten by, Catholic dogmas about heroic virtue and supererogatory merit.

    “Hays' immediate response (besides the usual [YAWN] insulting of my basic intelligence and exegetical acumen) was to pick one passage.”

    One passage? I think not. I discussed several of his spooftexts, viz., Isa 32:11, Ezk 4:1-8, Lk 22:44, 1 Cor 9:27.

    I also placed his spooftexts in context, viz. Lev 19:27-28; 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 15:3; Jer 49:3; Ezk 27:31; Jonah 3:5; Isa 58:3-7.

    “That referred to women ‘stripping’ and wearing sackcloth (one in which God Himself prescribed the behavior) and make jokes about topless nuns and spring break, etc. (which corresponded thematically with his previous allusions to S&M nuns). This is what I described in my revised introduction as ‘very close to mocking Scripture and God Himself’ -- NOT merely because he mocked nuns (bad enough in and of itself), as he thinks, but because he went after the thing that God Himself prescribed and mocked IT.”

    It was Dave’s prooftext, not mine. He thinks that Isa 32:11 is relevant to the situation of contemporary Christians. So why does he wax indignant if I apply his own prooftext to Catholic nuns? For him to call that “mockery” is self-incriminating.

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  18. Cont. “But note closely the method he employs, so we can learn from it, insofar as we deal with fools like this at all (and I hardly ever do anymore). I've seen it time and again. One attempts to actually seriously discuss Holy Scripture. Hays makes a dumb, sweeping statement (in this case, about sackcloth) that is easily, embarrassingly refuted. This particular claim of his is already -- beyond all argument -- demonstrably false. It IS prescriptive behavior in the Bible.”

    Actually, Armstrong never demonstrated that point. One problem is that he makes no distinction between literary genre and another. No allowance for poetry or stock imagery. He reads everything in the same flat, backwoods fashion.

    “And that is all the Catholic really needs to clinch the case for biblically-sanctioned mortification of the flesh.”

    This is where Dave uses sackcloth as a stopgap to justify Catholic self-flagellation. He hasn’t begun to make an exegetical case for that. At best, that’s an argument from analogy minus the argument. And it’s blatantly anachronistic.

    “Knowing that (down deep), Hays resorted to what he (like the devil…)”

    Dave should be wary about comparing me to the Devil. I doubt the Old Serpent takes kindly to sharing the credit. The devil is likely to unleash a poltergeist on Dave’s household when he denies him top billing.

    “The fact that he sees nothing scandalous in that, or also in his lascivious, sexually-obsessed comments…”

    That’s very funny considering all of the scantily-clad artwork adorning Catholic churches.

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  19. Mark P. Shea said:
    In a more civilized age somebody would challenge you swine to pistols at dawn.

    This is one reason why the Reformation will make better inroads now than in the 16th century. There are now laws against people shooting people over things they say.

    The Reformation was primarily about ideas; when Rome couldn't defeat the ideas, they had to pull such stunts as the St. Bartholomew's day massacre.

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  20. Hey Louis,

    I wanted to answer one thing you said...

    "So no, I don't understand the ordering of priorities here. I wonder though, if it wasn't a nun, if it was 'lay-women gone wild', whether you would have the same reaction, and if not, why?"

    If you mentioned Catholic laywomen, then mentioned a specific Catholic laygroup by name, and alluded to girls gone wild, then yes, I would have a problem with that.

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