The Confusion of Catholicism

[grannymh]

I’d like to propose a new method for this thread. Let’s limit our replies to 10 or fewer sentences each (excluding quotes from scholarly sources). I have gone first here. So many words are being written, but shockingly little worthwhile dialogue is being produced. It’s mostly obfuscation, avoidance, and equivocation. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to stay on task? Here’s a refresher:

Is the essence of Catholicism and/or atheism confusing or ambiguous, why or why not? Do rigid ideologies seem to produce hatred in the souls of those who hold them, why or why not? Is the ambiguity (if it exists) related to the hate (if it exists)?

How about this for a short reply?

The essence of Catholicism becomes confusing or ambiguous because the historical source of Catholic theology has not been examined properly.

 

[guanophore]

  Genesis 1:31New International Version (NIV)

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

It is through the Spirit that we see that whatsoever exists in any way is good - St Augustine.

Of course we are in agreemnet that God created mankind “good”. But this leaves out the other half of the story. Thtough the Fall, the good that is innate in mankind was wounded, such that we can no longer properly reflect His glory as He intended without the stain of original sin being healed. Your framework seems to disregard concupiscence, the world, the flesh,a nd the devil. These are realities, OneSheep, none of which are abrogated by handshaking.

As with all your accusations, you have no authority, and they are only your opinions.

I have given you a good number of my own opinions on spiritual issues, and I have never claimed them to be doctrinal, including the observation that holding hands can create a sense of unity.

On the contrary, OneSheep, you have placed hand holding in the context of Eucharist, and disrgarded the impact upon unity of those who approach unity who remain dead in their sins. You have quoted the Pope in an effort to bolster this new age idea that holding hands creates unity. How can you say you are not promoting this practice as a reflection of right doctrine?

If they are “well-founded”, prove it, please stop your assertions and prove it!

I don;t know how often you frequent the philosphy forum, so perhaps you are not aware that it is impossible to prove a negative. There is no church teaching or evidence anywhere that supports the errant notion that people holding hands creates unity in the body of Christ. One cannot provide proof of something that does not exist.

I am ready to hold you accountable.  I stand by every word I wrote on this thread, do you stand by yours?  Please show this thread to your superior, and tell me his reaction. I cannot imagine anyone of authority in our great Church approving of what you are doing here.

This may be another reflection of the inner world of OneSheep. I can assure you that there are plenty of priets, deacons and superiors who infiltrate the Church with innovative modernism, then justify it as you have done here. Fortunately my superior is not one of them!

At the beginning of this post, I addressed one of the “dangerous deviations” that I have never stated were doctrine, but you say go against doctrine, that I am “rejecting Christ”. If that is the case, the writer of Genesis rejected Christ, and so did St. Augustine.

No, OS, they did not. But keep reading. You will come to the part of Genesis where it says that the thought of ever man was evil continually and God regretted He created him. And keep reading your Augustine, as he has much to say also about the fallen nature of man.

Guanophore, the issue is not that I am claiming that holding hands creates unity is doctrinal. I have never made the claim. The issue at hand is that you are saying that my observations and opinions I write “reject the teachings of the Church” or other such unfounded, uncharitable accusations.

Practices are based upon doctrines. If you think you have not tried to defend this belief of hand holding creating unity as consistent with good doctrine you are mistaken.

 I think, guanophore, that it would be helpful for you to get used to encountering Catholics with a different spirituality than your own.  Open your mind.  Did you know that is what the root of "repent" means?  It means to open your mind.  While you are at it, open your heart.

My dear OneSheep. You know nothing of my spirituality, or the types of spirituality I have encountered.

You are mistaken about the root of repentance. Your perception is another new age interpolation.

I have been on CAF for a long time, OS, and I have seen a great many persons come here, claiming to be Catholic. I have learned more about my faith since coming here that I learned in decades before that. I know a counterfeit when I see it.

It seems that I have hurt your feelings, OneSheep. It is not my intention to be hurtful, and I am aware that pointing out departures from the faith can be very painful. I have been on the receiving end of it myself.

 

[guanophore]

Good morning, guanophore,

Holding hands can create a feeling of unity, but I think you don’t like holding hands with people, especially during the liturgy.

You seem to have made an erroneous assumption about me.

There is nothing “wrong” about what I said. You continue to create a straw man and knock him down. I am not making doctrinal claims, and there is nothing in the CCC or any Catholic doctrine that says holding hands cannot help create a feeling of unity, and cannot be inspired by the unifying action of the Spirit.

I agree. There is a great difference, however, between a “feeling of unity” and the actual existence of unity. Certainly fellowship can be inspired by the HS. The error is in equating the warm fuzzy feeling that goes with the handholding to one of spiritual communion.

 Your accusations are loaded with presumptions.

Perhaps so. I can only go on the content of the posts.

Humans, through the help of the Holy Spirit, can create unity in our world, between nations, religions, races, all people. If you have Catholic doctrine that says otherwise, please bring it forth.

You will not get an argument from me here. But your previous forumlations of the unity created by hand holding did not include the activity of the HS.

It is my opinion that holding hands can help create unity.

Each to her own, I suppose.

I will accept your ownership of handshaking creating unity as an opinion.

 

[tonyrey]

OK, what do you see in this picture?

http://www.hprweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Scanlon_photos7-10-15.jpg

I see a man holding up an object and two other men kneeling before him. I know from experience that the words accompanying this action are essentially a proclamation that the object is in fact God in the sense that it is the second person of God. That is literally and obviously what is happening here.

Now, you’ll say all kinds of other things are happening, but plain common sense tells us what is obvious. You’ll say it only appears to be what I say it is, but it is in fact something much more profound. I think it’s fine for you to believe that, but I don’t.

With the picture in the previous post, neither of us have any idea of what the deeper significance of the act is. It could be ritual cannibalism for all you or I know. It could be a religious sacrifice to a sun deity, it could be any number of things. However, from the outside, it is clearly and obviously a murder by removal of the heart. Would you be ready to convert to the religion of the heart-removers because they tell you they’re convinced what they’re doing is pleasing to God?

From the outside, mass is clearly and obviously the worship of an object. I’m not ready to believe just because some people say they’re convinced it is pleasing to God.

Can you see your mind?

 

[OneSheep]

No, OS, they did not. But keep reading. You will come to the part of Genesis where it says that the thought of ever man was evil continually and God regretted He created him. And keep reading your Augustine, as he has much to say also about the fallen nature of man.

God regretted creating man? Where does it say that in Genesis?

Augustine sometimes said very bad things about himself, especially about when he was Manichean. However, he made many, many absolute statements about the goodness of creation and man as part of that. You see, guanophore, these concepts are not part of our creed. We can come to naturally resent humanity, it may be a part of our journey, and the Church allows for these differences in perception.

You are mistaken about the root of repentance. Your perception is another new age interpolation…

ncronline.org/blogs/making-difference/god-calling-each-person-and-every-nation-repent

Are you now going to say that Tony Magliano is a new-ager, guanophore?

I will accept your ownership of handshaking creating unity as an opinion.

Yay! Now we are getting somewhere!!!



I await your reply on my last post to you. Maybe we are finally getting out of this!

 

[tonyrey]

I’d like to propose a new method for this thread. Let’s limit our replies to 10 or fewer sentences each (excluding quotes from scholarly sources). I have gone first here. So many words are being written, but shockingly little worthwhile dialogue is being produced. It’s mostly obfuscation, avoidance, and equivocation. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to stay on task? Here’s a refresher:

Is the essence of Catholicism and/or atheism confusing or ambiguous, why or why not? Do rigid ideologies seem to produce hatred in the souls of those who hold them, why or why not? Is the ambiguity (if it exists) related to the hate (if it exists)?

1. The essence of Catholicism is not confusing or ambiguous because it is an explanation of why we exist: we are created by a loving Father who has sent His Son to liberate us from evil and share life with Him forever in Heaven.
2. Catholicism is not a rigid ideology because it teaches that our ultimate authority is our conscience and we should always do what we believe is right.
3. There is no ambiguity or hatred in Catholicism because love is at heart of Christ’s teaching which tells us forgive those who trespass against us as He forgave those who crucified Him.

 

[Gorgias]

This would not resolve the issue. If God is what father son and holy spirit are then we are saying all three have a godness about them. We have three gods,

No we don’t. Divinity is a property of God, and the Three Persons of God have divinity by virtue of being God (not by virtue of being a Person). If Divinity were a property of a Person, then you’d have a point – each Person would be a distinct God… but they’re not.

unless we explain some sort of relation between them that makes them one “who”.

I’m saying that they’re one what (“God”) but three who’s. That relationship, then, is ‘Person’ – which I’m asserting looks different for God and for creatures.

Ok. But are you claiming God is one being? What makes the persons distinct if they all have the same essence? … What properties individuate the Trinitarian persons?

I think that now, you’re beginning to get into the distinctions found in discussions of the ‘economic Trinity’ and the ‘immanent Trinity’ (or ‘ontological Trinity’). The former distinction points out the roles found in the Trinity: on one hand, we can talk about the Father as ‘Creator’, the Son as ‘Redeemer’, and the Spirit as ‘Sanctifier’. These roles distinguish the persons of the Trinity – not in terms of ‘who’ they are, but in terms of ‘what they do’.

On the other hand, the ‘ontological Trinity’ refers to the relationships found within the Trinity. What distinguishes the Persons of the Trinity is that the First Person of the Godhead is ‘Father’, the Second Person ‘Son’, and the Third Person ‘Spirit’. It is this set of interior relationships that distinguishes the three Persons. Here’s the problem, though: since this distinction is internal to the Trinity, how can we (as humans) know about it and understand it? The answer is that we cannot – at least, not without God’s revelation of self to inform us of God’s nature. And, of course, as Christians, we believe that we do have this kind of self-revelation: it’s found in Scripture and in Christ’s message to us.

What do you mean by identical values?

If I had a bushel of apples and another of oranges, and you asked me to count them, I might say that the count has identical values. That wouldn’t mean that the apples were identical to oranges, but just that the two counts have identical values.

It is getting confusing here with the term “being”. We can say humans are a kind of being, and we can also say you and I aren’t the same token being. Is God a being in the first or second sense?

You seem to be referring to the distinction between ‘essence’ and ‘existence’: ‘human’ is your essence and my essence; and ‘you’ and ‘I’ are distinct existences of humans. Perhaps ‘essence’ is what you mean by ‘being’? If so, then both we and God are examples of both senses – but ‘being’ is what you’re using to describe ‘essence’. Does that sound about right?

I am not sure that existence is “who” we are. What individuates me are properties exclusive to me

That’s right! It’s what makes you exclusively ‘you’! Yes – you’ve got it!

, the characteristic modifications of the human essence pertaining to me Once I die I am still not you, even if I don’t exist.

You’ve raised a different topic, unfortunately. Are you sure you want to go there? I’m going to defer for now, since there’s already so much on the table…

This is still unclear to me. It seems to be restating the formula that God is father, son and holy spirit. But his is the thing we are trying to understand.

Yeah, but then you assigned a mathematical equation that just doesn’t work, and tried to assert that, since your equation failed, the thing that it (poorly) modeled didn’t work. That’s just silly: it’s kind of like pointing to my dog and saying “cat!” and then saying “since he doesn’t purr and lap cream, he doesn’t exist!”. (No, it’s just that the definition provided was deficient…!)

For humans you are saying, essence (class of being)-> human. Token (particular being) → paziego.

And then for God, essence (class of being)->Deity. Token (particular Deity) → father, son and holy spirit.

I think I’m saying that the relations ‘essence’ and ‘existence’ each take an argument of type ‘being’. If they’re given an argument of type ‘person’, then what’s really being asked about isn’t the ‘person’, per se, but the ‘being’ that the person belongs to. You can make a valid relation over essence(person), but you’re really just casting the argument to the appropriate type.

This is an identity claim, and requires further explanation of the relation the composing persons have with the token being they represent. You need to explain why these are the same being. It is either father, son and holy spirit as three different tokens, or it is God=[father, son and holy spirit]. The latter does not solve the problem, as it requires God to be a person with three internal aspects, and this is not consonant with Trinitarian orthodoxy.

No. I’m saying neither; I deny your assertion that it must be one or the other. Why must I accept your taxonomy?

 

[paziego]

I’d like to propose a new method for this thread. Let’s limit our replies to 10 or fewer sentences each (excluding quotes from scholarly sources). I have gone first here. So many words are being written, but shockingly little worthwhile dialogue is being produced. It’s mostly obfuscation, avoidance, and equivocation. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to stay on task? Here’s a refresher:

Is the essence of Catholicism and/or atheism confusing or ambiguous, why or why not? Do rigid ideologies seem to produce hatred in the souls of those who hold them, why or why not? Is the ambiguity (if it exists) related to the hate (if it exists)?

The essence of Catholicism is both ambiguous and unambiguous. It is ambiguous in the sense that central concepts are difficult to grasp. For example, there are several explanations for how Jesus’ death on the cross achieved atonement. Furthermore, none or the core beliefs are explicitly stated in the New Testament, so a believer must extrapolate these from the text with the guidance of the church while struggling with the translation and the completely alien historical context. At the same time, the essence of the faith is unambiguous in that at its core it is based on authority. To be a Catholic is to obey the church. Together, these features produce a mixture of confusion and fideism.

Fideism is inherently hateful of reason.

 

[Gorgias]

It does hold and it is valid. It may be open to objections but you cannot dismiss it out of hand like that.

No, you explicitly showed that it doesn’t hold – namely, that Father=Son=Spirit is not true! If you mis-represent what you’re attempting to model, you can only claim that the model is deficient!

Sorry, but you cannot make this leap. You are slipping the conclusion into the argument without warrant.

Odd… that’s precisely what I claimed you were doing!

There is not any evidence that God is a singleton, as from what you have put forward so far we have three to four candidates.

God’s self-revelation is the evidence. Given that we’re talking about the Immanent Trinity, His self-revelation is all the evidence we could possibly have!

Three to four entities with a divine essence and with distinct identities, just as you and I share a human essence but are not identical tokens.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, you’re making the error of presuming that human essence and existence is identical in form and nature to divine essence and existence. That isn’t necessary (nor, as we see, is it in fact true.)

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Can you see your mind?

One cannot see what is by nature invisible. I agree God is invisible.

If you held up a bowl full of porridge and asked me to affirm that it is in fact your mind though it appears to be porridge, I would not believe you. I can verify the existence of your mind by speaking with you. I can test whether or not the bowl of porridge is your mind by eating some of it, or scattering it on the ground and then asking you some questions. If your responses appear to be unaffected by the destruction of the porridge, I will conclude it either isn’t your mind or your mind can’t be detected or it doesn’t affect your functioning significantly. Are there similar experiments that can be done on the object in question?

 

[PumpkinCookie]

1. The essence of Catholicism is not confusing or ambiguous because it is an explanation of why we exist: we are created by a loving Father who has sent His Son to liberate us from evil and share life with Him forever in Heaven.
2. Catholicism is not a rigid ideology because it teaches that our ultimate authority is our conscience and we should always do what we believe is right.
3. There is no ambiguity or hatred in Catholicism because love is at heart of Christ’s teaching which tells us forgive those who trespass against us as He forgave those who crucified Him.

1. Don’t we have to deny reality or resort to ambiguity to believe your first point above? No such son has liberated us: sin and death remain abundant and have never abated. How is this explanation specifically and exclusively Catholic rather than ambiguously Christian?
2. OK, fair enough. Other Catholics will disagree with you about this of course. Which are the true Catholics?
3. Then why are there so many vicious diatribes against “heretics” throughout the centuries? Why did the Church persecute, torture, and excommunicate those who followed their consciences if they weren’t motivated by hate? Were any of these “heretics” opposed to love and forgiveness (except the Donatists I suppose)?

 

[paziego]

No we don’t. Divinity is a property of God, and the Three Persons of God have divinity by virtue of being God (not by virtue of being a Person). If Divinity were a property of a Person, then you’d have a point – each Person would be a distinct God… but they’re not.

If God is a what rather than a who, the he is the property of divinity. Persons having this property still need an explanation for their unity in a single being.

I’m saying that they’re one what (“God”) but three who’s. That relationship, then, is ‘Person’ – which I’m asserting looks different for God and for creatures.

That is the problem, you are making an assertion. You and I are one what - human. You and I are two whos - paziego and gorgias.

I think that now, you’re beginning to get into the distinctions found in discussions of the ‘economic Trinity’ and the ‘immanent Trinity’ (or ‘ontological Trinity’). The former distinction points out the roles found in the Trinity: on one hand, we can talk about the Father as ‘Creator’, the Son as ‘Redeemer’, and the Spirit as ‘Sanctifier’. These roles distinguish the persons of the Trinity – not in terms of ‘who’ they are, but in terms of ‘what they do’.

I am not sure if this is allowed. I will have to think about this more but it seems like modalism to me. The redeeming mode, the creating mode and the sanctifying mode.

On the other hand, the ‘ontological Trinity’ refers to the relationships found within the Trinity. What distinguishes the Persons of the Trinity is that the First Person of the Godhead is ‘Father’, the Second Person ‘Son’, and the Third Person ‘Spirit’. It is this set of interior relationships that distinguishes the three Persons. Here’s the problem, though: since this distinction is internal to the Trinity, how can we (as humans) know about it and understand it? The answer is that we cannot – at least, not without God’s revelation of self to inform us of God’s nature. And, of course, as Christians, we believe that we do have this kind of self-revelation: it’s found in Scripture and in Christ’s message to us.

But this revelation does not explain it. It is not even apparent that there is a solid scriptural basis for it. And if the persons represent the internal life of god then god is now a who, not a what. Therefore the persons are modes or parts.

You seem to be referring to the distinction between ‘essence’ and ‘existence’: ‘human’ is your essence and my essence; and ‘you’ and ‘I’ are distinct existences of humans. Perhaps ‘essence’ is what you mean by ‘being’? If so, then both we and God are examples of both senses – but ‘being’ is what you’re using to describe ‘essence’. Does that sound about right?

I am not sure anymore. It is hard to keep up with the terminology.

Yeah, but then you assigned a mathematical equation that just doesn’t work, and tried to assert that, since your equation failed, the thing that it (poorly) modeled didn’t work. That’s just silly: it’s kind of like pointing to my dog and saying “cat!” and then saying “since he doesn’t purr and lap cream, he doesn’t exist!”. (No, it’s just that the definition provided was deficient…!)

If the equation does not work it is not because I modelled it poorly. It is because the laws of identity do not permit what the trinity doctrine is trying to say. There is nothing incorrect or controversial in saying “the son is god, the father is god, the son is the father”.

I think I’m saying that the relations ‘essence’ and ‘existence’ each take an argument of type ‘being’. If they’re given an argument of type ‘person’, then what’s really being asked about isn’t the ‘person’, per se, but the ‘being’ that the person belongs to. You can make a valid relation over essence(person), but you’re really just casting the argument to the appropriate type.

Could you rephrase this please?

No. I’m saying neither; I deny your assertion that it must be one or the other. Why must I accept your taxonomy?

Fine. Give me another alternative.

 

[paziego]

No, you explicitly showed that it doesn’t hold – namely, that Father=Son=Spirit is not true! If you mis-represent what you’re attempting to model, you can only claim that the model is deficient!

What I meant is that the refutation holds. It is supposed to be a demonstration of the inconsistency of the trinity.

God’s self-revelation is the evidence. Given that we’re talking about the Immanent Trinity, His self-revelation is all the evidence we could possibly have!

But this revelation is founded on the divine authority of Jesus. Yet this divinity is what we are currently questioning. I am not sure we can appeal to this.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, you’re making the error of presuming that human essence and existence is identical in form and nature to divine essence and existence. That isn’t necessary (nor, as we see, is it in fact true.)

What is the point in using terms like essence and existence then?

 

[OneSheep]

Here is the end of my post to you, Guanophore, which so far you have not responded to:

OneSheep:

Let’s shake on it, guanophore, adherence to “sound teachings of our Lord” does not lead to disputes over words. Here are some “sound teachings” we can agree on: Love God. Love one another. Have mercy. Welcome strangers, everyone! Be charitable. Be merciful. Recognize that we who are baptized and have committed themselves to Christ are part of the body. Believe in the Creed.

I am going to presume, giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you agree with all the rest of the “sound teachings” I presented in the paragraph above and that you are doing unto me as you would have done unto you. Okay, I think that you are saying that you do not recognize that all of us who are baptized and have committed themselves to Christ are part of the body. Well then, if you agree on everything else, can we shake on it? After all, you said you could “shake the hand of anyone” and that you do “not wish to be separated”.

Can you put the differences aside and shake my hand? Let’s call it “enough” on this argument.

God Bless your day.

So, I again ask the question. Can you put the differences aside and shake my hand? I am still waiting. A simple “yes” or “no” answer is what I am requesting. It is Friday during lent, guanophore. I am not asking you to agree with my opinions. I am asking for your respect, which is shown by shaking my hand.

And remember, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I did not commit to saying that you do not like to hold hands with people in Church. I only speculated, due to your resistance. I said, “I think”, not “I know”. I stand corrected.

Shake?

 

[grannymh]

OK, what do you see in this picture?

http://www.hprweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Scanlon_photos7-10-15.jpg

From the outside, mass is clearly and obviously the worship of an object. I’m not ready to believe just because some people say they’re convinced it is pleasing to God.

From the inside, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the worship of God the Creator.

I believe this from these three separate fundamental truths. When one denies the first truth, the rest is ordinary trash. The Scripture base is Genesis 1: 26-27.

Truth one.
God as Creator exists.

Truth two.
God as Creator interacts personally with each individual human.

Truth three.
Every individual human has the inherent capacity to interact with God as Creator.

 

[Gorgias]

What I meant is that the refutation holds. It is supposed to be a demonstration of the inconsistency of the trinity.

That doesn’t make sense, either. If I’m trying to refute that my dog is an animal, and I describe him as ‘cat’, that doesn’t demonstrate the inconsistency of his nature – just that I mis-defined his nature!

But this revelation is founded on the divine authority of Jesus. Yet this divinity is what we are currently questioning. I am not sure we can appeal to this.

Ahh… so, before we argue definitions, we need to discuss epistemology. Fair enough. Given that the assertion is that God exists, then how can we suggest that we can know anything about him? That is, if you’re already willing to throw away sources of evidence, then what sources of evidence do you posit are reasonable to accept?

What is the point in using terms like essence and existence then?

I’m not sure why you’re asking this. If you were Wonder Woman, living on the isle of Themyscira, then you might presume that there was only one gender – ‘female’. Once you learned that there were different values for the property ‘gender’, would you really ask “what’s the point in using terms like ‘gender’, then, if they don’t apply identically to all humans?”

The point in using ‘essence’ and ‘existence’ is precisely that they distinguish between various existences and various essences. The fact that God – not being a creature – has properties that act in different ways, doesn’t speak to the value of these categories. Rather, it shows that there’s value in making these distinctions: they allow us to define things that we would otherwise be unable to define.

 

[grannymh]

One cannot see what is by nature invisible. I agree God is invisible.

If you held up a bowl full of porridge and asked me to affirm that it is in fact your mind though it appears to be porridge, I would not believe you. I can verify the existence of your mind by speaking with you. I can test whether or not the bowl of porridge is your mind by eating some of it, or scattering it on the ground and then asking you some questions. If your responses appear to be unaffected by the destruction of the porridge, I will conclude it either isn’t your mind or your mind can’t be detected or it doesn’t affect your functioning significantly. Are there similar experiments that can be done on the object in question?

I tried and I tried not to respond to your bowl full of porridge example.
I really tried.

Alas and good grief, I failed. I have to admit. There are times when my poor mind is definitely a bowl full of porridge.

 

[grannymh]

I’d like to propose a new method for this thread. Let’s limit our replies to 10 or fewer sentences each (excluding quotes from scholarly sources). I have gone first here. So many words are being written, but shockingly little worthwhile dialogue is being produced. It’s mostly obfuscation, avoidance, and equivocation. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to stay on task? Here’s a refresher:

Is the essence of Catholicism and/or atheism confusing or ambiguous, why or why not? Do rigid ideologies seem to produce hatred in the souls of those who hold them, why or why not? Is the ambiguity (if it exists) related to the hate (if it exists)?

How about this for a short reply?

The essence of Catholicism becomes confusing or ambiguous because the historical source of Catholic theology has not been examined properly.

 

[tonyrey]

I believe we are fully justified in hating an ideology that has driven many people to despair and commit suicide - like a friend of mine who lost her faith Atheism is essentially negative and deprives life of all value, purpose and meaning. To think otherwise is illogical and amounts to getting something for nothing!

 

[jmcrae]

I’m not making any assumptions, I’m trying to understand the picture with as few preconceived notions as possible.

One of the first things we learned in art school was that this is exactly how not to look at pictures. In order to understand pictures, you need to learn their visual language, and understand context and history. You have to have conversations with the artist. You need to be rooted in art history and the tradition of art-making.

The one thing you can’t do is pretend you don’t know anything. Although if s picture is confusing you, you would have to open your mind and ask a lot of questions.