NFM, as an Orthodox Christian, I love Ancient faith radio. I listen to the music during work, pod casts at home when I can listen more closely.

I enjoyed reading The Primacy of Peter and would recommend it for an Eastern perspective on the Pope.

Mark.

Malackym, have you ever read any of the Philokalia? I just impulse-bought it in four volumes on amazon and I'm wondering what I got myself into.

Also, I may go for the short summary rather than the "semi-thorough" write-up. But still not yet :P Worky worky.

I was thinking specifically of the one with two popes, one at Avignon. I hadn't realized that there was a period when there was only one Pope, and he was at Avignon, not Rome.

No I haven't WN, I think for the same reasons you are wondering about; it is quite a volume of work. We have the four volumes at our Church, but I have only skimmed over them.

Have you read "The Way of the Pilgrim"? If you're hesitant about the Philokalia, I would recommend this first. Also, IMO "A Treasure of Russian Spirituality" is a good book and seems similar, only much shorter that the Philokalia.

I will be at my Church tonight, and you've given me the itch to see if they are available. They would be very appropriate reading for me during this time of Lent.

Mark.

Despite the fact that they still said they believed? So, would you agree that if someone did believe in the resurrection, but took it to mean that they could say or do anything without consequence (because they were forgiven no matter what, you see), that they might actually not be forgiven at all? Or thinking that they can get by with just a nominal attempt at trying, for appearance sake, but it makes no difference whether they succeed or not (because they're forgiven no matter what, and they're the only one that matters). Would you agree that someone who believed in the resurrection, but had that mindset might very well not be saved at all? I mean trying and failing is one thing, but not trying at all, or not caring if you succeed seems very different.

The Bible would seem to agree with that idea:


And that goes even farther. These aren't people who didn't try at all, but those who did it for the wrong reasons. Some of those reasons are explored in the previous chapter:


So, would you accept that someone who evangelized, not because he cared about getting results, but only because of how good he thought he looked doing it, might not be saved at all, even though he believed in the Resurrection? This stuff is pretty explicit. Just saying "Lord, Lord" isn't enough.

There's no real difference between the two.

That looks like it would be an interesting read Malackym. I'm actually not so keen on the Catholic teachings regarding the Pope, there are other reasons I prefer Catholicism to Orthodoxy.

Ken
I would agree that if you’re looking more for history this would not be the book. I would imagine this book has more to do with what Catholics teach about the Popes. I read the negative reviews and here are my thoughts:
The first reviewer, Cragun, claimed it had fallacies and misquotes yet could not give a single example. Why write such a long rant against a book without a single example?

The second negative review was better because, although it also did not have any content, it had the merit of brevity.

But again both reviewers may be off mark because they were thinking of getting a history of all the popes instead of a discussion of certain myths. I guess they are upset that the book is what it says it is.

Since you are looking for just a general history of the Popes and seem less concerned about what the church teaches about the Popes, I agree, you are not looking for Pope Fiction. I too am interested in that book by Eamon Duffy.

When, precisely, are you going to listen to all these new podcasts? There are only 24 hours in a day.

So far I've managed to get 30 minutes to 2 hours a day of listening in. I'm halfway through the AstronomyCast (30 more to go, plus probably 6 new ones still to be transfered). Usually I do it when I'm out walking for fun and profit. I do need to figure out how to double the playback rate though, because I still have more series to work through and I'm subscribed to 6 different podcast channels, including a language learning podcast, not to mention I need to review bird songs, and am only halfway through book 1 (Dear Mr. Darwin) of the current 4 I'm trying to read, and then I have to add the pope history book to that, then some magazine articles to write....Maybe if I get a second iPod and then have one on each ear....

Good thing I'm in between contracts at the moment, I don't know how anyone gets anything done when they have to work at a full-time job 12 months of the year with only 2 to 3 weeks vacation. Even 10 months of the year leaves you precious little time.

Vaguely chess-related, for which I apologize for putting in this thread. But I was just looking at the Bizarro thread, and trying to remember how much I knew of the soap opera between Polgar, Truong, Sloan and the USCF. I was looking at Sloan's Wikipedia entry, and was struck by the last sentence:



I'm holding back many jokes that I would regret, but also one serious question. I've never really understood the relationship between Islam the religion and Islam the culture. You often hear about people converting to Islam and thinking they need to adopt an Arabic sounding name (like Muhammad Ali, the only black man who changed his name from that of a famous abolitionist to that of a famous slaveowner).

You never hear about that kind of thing working in reverse. You don't hear about someone around the world converting to Christianity and changing their name to "Bob 'Apple Pie' Jones". I mean, I've heard of people coming here and adopting an American-sounding name because they're tired of telling people how to spell 'Nguyen', but they wouldn't need one if they were staying in their own country. (And of course, Obama, though Christian, has felt no need to change his Islamic sounding name.)

So theoretically, if one of us converted to Islam tomorrow, what allegiance would we suddenly have to political and cultural entities in the Middle East?

If that's really his name, I think I prefer to call him Haji Mohammed Sloan from now on, rather than Sam.