intentional

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:24 PM -0400 7/16/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>That definitely IS opposite THEOLOGICALLY! A Quaker (an "orthodox"
>one, at least) believes firmly in an omnipotent Biblical God and a
>historical (as well as in-dwelling) Savior, whereas a Unitarian (as
>the quip goes) is someone who believes there is at most one god--to
>be addressed as "May We." (Actually, that's TWO quips.)
>
>Well, I suppose a Unitarian CAN believe in Quaker theology, is he wants to!

That's certainly true, but the opposite isn't obviously false, at
least not according to the Universal Authority (I refer, of course,
to wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Society_of_Friends)

================
Unlike many other groups that emerged within Christianity, the
Religious Society of Friends has tended away from creeds, and in
modern times away from hierarchical structure.

The various branches have widely divergent beliefs and practices, but
the central concept to many Friends is the "Inner Light".
Accordingly, individual Quakers may develop individual religious
beliefs arising from their personal conscience and revelation coming
from "God within"; further, Quakers feel obliged to live by such
individual religious beliefs and inner revelations.

Many Quakers feel their faith does not fit within traditional
Christian categories of Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, but is an
expression of another way of experiencing God.

Although Quakers throughout most of their history and in most parts
of the world today consider Quakerism to be a Christian movement,
some Friends (principally in some Meetings in the United States and
the United Kingdom) now consider themselves universalist, agnostic,
atheist, nonrealist, humanist, postchristian, or nontheist, or do not
accept any religious label. Calls for Quakerism to include
non-Christians go back at least as far as 1870, but this phenomenon
has become increasingly evident during the latter half of the 20th
century and the opening years of the 21st century, and is still
controversial among Friends. An especially notable example of this is
that of Friends who go beyond simply being non-christian, but
actively identify as a member of another faith, such as Islam or
Buddhism.
================
Not *that* different from Unitarians, for the most part.  Now try
substituting "Baptist", "Lutheran", or "Roman Catholic" for "Quaker"
or "Friend" in these paragraphs and you'll see what I mean about
antonymy...

LH


>
>My point was that the two groups are NOT "opposite" ethically or practically.
>
>--Charlie
>_____________________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:27:55 -0400
>>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>Subject: Re: intentional
>
>>
>>At 1:17 PM -0400 7/16/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>>It's interesting how Quakers and Unitarians--so opposite theologically
>>
>>Opposite theologically?  How so?  From which theory of antonymy
>>does this follow?  If it's just that Quakers are necessarily
>>theists while Unitarians aren't, that doesn't yield oppositeness.
>>Unless, of course, Nixon is taken to be the prototypic Quaker...
>>
>>--LH, intentional Unitarian
>
>>
>>>--can still turn out to be the same "sort of people": that is,
>>>"ethically-focussed, politically progressive, humanist" (in one
>>>sense of "humanist," at least).
>>>
>>>--Charlie
>>>_____________________________________________________________
>>>
>>>---- Original message ----
>>>>Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:05:25 -0400
>>>>From: sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
>>>>Subject: Re: intentional
>>>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>
>>>>You are quite right about the intentional community.  I should have
>>>>enlarged on that.  Instead, I got to thinking about "intentional"
>>>>as it functions in the larger community of  the ethically-focussed,
>>>>politically progressive, humanist, unitarian, quakerish  sort of
>>>>people among whom a
>>>lot of my life has been spent.
>>>
>>>>AM
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>  >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org