Geoff: yep, that’s life! This is earth, not heaven. Goethe: “Man errs, as long as he strives.”
Then regarding the Franciscans, and without debating their worth (!), please recall my words, above: “That’s not to say that from our fetid imaginations no good can possibly come.” Though I still maintain that taking anything on faith is always a mistake, you are right: the facts show that error lies in wait, whichever path we choose.
I am just terribly impressed by the insane recklessness of faith, by the enormities it has produced — and I can’t think of anything at all comparable that proceeded from rational, empirical ethics. When scientists run amok (as in the Tuskegee syphillis study), it’s from moral blindness, not an excess of either faith or reason. Yet reason and spirituality dictate, IMHO, a humane ethic. Faith seldom does — witness Islam and its hundreds of millions of believers.
And as I said, the ethics of today’s Christianity and the Hebrew faith are mostly the result of Christians and Jews simply ignoring large parts of the OT. Of course we still have some Christians who believe in witches and the death penalty for those who work on the Sabbath (Ex. 31:15), curse (Lev. 24:16), or commit adultery (Lev. 20:10).
I submit that the comments here have indeed refined and expanded Bay’s criteria. This is a valuable contribution to understanding terrorism in all its forms.
