One good indication that you're intellectually honest is when people who disagree with your philosophies agree with your analyses of others' philosophies. "Intellectual honesty" is, if you will, a meta-philosophy that attempts to prescribe how disagreements between belief systems should be evaluated and understood.
For example, I expect that phelps and I would disagree about a great many things, but he echos my analysis of Nancy Pelosi and her decision to continue taking Communion in spite of her church's objections. I can only quote a bit, since I try to keep swear words off my site as much as possible.
Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat who was raised in a devout Italian Catholic home, told reporters, "I believe that my position on choice is one that is consistent with my Catholic upbringing, which said that every person has a free will and has the responsibility to live their lives in a way that they would have to account for in the end."Right. The people who use the free will in a way that the church doesn't agree with are called SINNERS. People who publicly continue to sin are denied Communion. That is how it works. ..."I want to keep supporting what my church considers to be a mortal sin, but I still want to be in good standing in my church. I'm a Very Important Politician, so gimme what I want, or I'll... uh... keep sinning like I was going to anyway."
I tend to stick around long enough to get a feel for what goes on doesn't on other people's sites and comment appropriately. If you come onto my site, well, whoever sent you should warn you (like you did.)
I swear when appropriate, especially when the subject effects me emotionally (and that doesn't happen often). Nancy C-word Pelosi is one that it is highly appropriate to swear about. Appropriate enough that I will drop the C-bomb on her -- something that I don't think I have ever done in my blog before.
I am a heretic. I take pride in being a heretic, and I take the lumps that go along with being a heretic. (Thankfully I live in America, where execution by immolation is no longer in vogue.) NCP wants to get the benefits without the costs. That makes me feel like my own hard-earned position is cheapened.
P: And there are, naturally, idiots on my side as well. I think that's inevitable. You can't judge a philisophical position based on the least common denominator of its followers.
No, but you can get angry and rant about them.
P: I do! Well, I don't really get angry at them, but I do try to educate them. I've written a lot about how Christians shouldn't try to use laws to force morality on people. From a spiritual perspective, it does no one any good to be forced to act in a good way, it only turns people against God.
I'm not Catholic, but isn't there a formal procedure called "excommunication" for denying a Catholic the right to take communion? And aren't Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry presumed to have the right to continue to take communion until excommunication actually occurs? Or is this like a pickup basketball game where you're expected to call the foul on yourself?
I've found it interesting to watch the Catholic conservatives who find it a healthy display of American cultural independence when Catholic politicians ignore Church teaching on the death penalty, the WOT, nuclear arms, etc. suddenly find it shocking when a different set of politicians similarly ignore Church teaching on abortion.
It would be nice if we could argue the merits of the issues instead of these phoney-baloney surrogate distractions.