Originally Posted by
Jean
bears are not agitated, they are being eloquent
Ah, yes, of course...
Originally Posted by
Jean
...you can't stand about with your thumb up your ass...
Why, it's sheer poetry.
Not that there's anything wrong with that... I just thought that I detected some frustration.
Originally Posted by
Jean
...I repeatedly fail to get across what I think...
I'm very sorry to make you feel that way.
These are mutual discussions, involving many parties. I have my agenda, too, but it would be far from true if you thought that nothing you have said has meant a thing to me.
Originally Posted by
Jean
...can we now try this: all I tried to say above...
This, I take to mean that you have already agreed that the world is important, too.
The problem is that while you are correct that outward charity is not intrinsically good, that it may be corrupt if done in the wrong spirit, and while you may even be correct that Roland makes a fitting example, you seemed to underestimate the fact that self-reflection can often be corrupt, as well.
Originally Posted by
Jean
...I am afraid any choice between options is always wrong. ...
You mean that, as they say, "You're damned if you do, and you're damned if don't"?
How appropriate!
Originally Posted by
Jean
...Steppenwolf reflects the attitude that seems to me abominable and is absolutely contrary to the idea I tried (and failed) to voice.
Well, duh.
It's really not compatible with Christian thinking. What I have never been able to get you to acknowledge, though, it that the same thing may be true of
The Dark Tower. You have always been so sure of it, and me so undecided. It might be that SK, too, holds that if the story has a good moral for the protagonist, then cosmological inconsistencies don't matter, but if that is the case then I will just say that you
both are absolutely wrong.