THE
HISTORY, PURPOSE,
AND PHILOSOPHY OF
THIS WEBSITE
© 2003 by Orchid Land Publications
[20030525]
This website has been
inspired by letters from those whose progress to, or whose return to, holy
Orthodoxy has been promoted by this site. As editor, I feel moved to thank
those who have written that they have converted to, or been helped along in an
incipient conversion to, holy Orthodoxy by reading postings on this site; I have
been most humbled by touching letters from lapsed Orthodox (sometimes lapsed
because of unavoidable circumstances) who, as the result of having had this site
recommended to them by a friend or having come across it in some other way, have
embraced the Faith anew. There can be no better reward than knowing
these things, especially since I realize that some pages are by no means light
reading and/or are not uniformly well-edited.
Except in the extensive cross-linking of related
topics, the site cannot claim to be systematically organized. As the
editor or an author has sought information on a question or issue that has
arisen more or less randomly, the details have been analysed and posted in the
hope of helping others pondering the same question or issue. Almost every
page on Part R of this site has thus been prepared by its author in response to
some existential occasion rather than in pursuit of a set plan. The
pages sometimes approach a topic in ways not found in other places (e.g. with
"models," as one correspondent has termed some of the analyses, or
what the editor calls axiomatic
paradigms or cognitive orientations, following a usage common in
other disciplines) that have been found helpful for getting at the heart of the
traditional, un-modernized, Orthodox Faith. Readers can be assured
that any author will have learned a lot from just having had to explain any
topic discussed here in such a way as to make matters clear to
oneself.
One
will note more attention to beliefs, practical rules of praying, fasting, and
understanding services than to disputed ethical matters, especially those
resulting from recent discoveries and techniques of medical science; beyond
advocating the unity that Christ prayer for, disputes in ecclesiastical
politics are not considered appropriate here. To this site are linked
such pious meditations, Saint's lives, and ethical topics as are known--and
judged suitable-- from sites where they are dealt with better and more
authoritatively than would be thinkable here. While the editor
is responsible for the selection of writings originating on this site, it is not
possible for OLP to accept responsibility for the contents of sites linked to
our site. Although the editor has made an effort to avoid linking any
unworthy site, it has not been feasible to check out every institution
represented on every linked site--that responsibility lies with visitors.
A recurring theme of the presentations of the Faith on this site is the formative rôle on our religious beliefs of our preconceptions and generally unexamined assumptions--our axiomatic or conceptual framework--in the vocabulary of Th. Kuhn: "paradigm." (For Christian paradigms, CLICK HERE.) Like a definition, a paradigm or axiomatic framework is neither provable nor disprovable, neither true nor false in the usual sense of those terms. The editor of this site recently came across a statement (on economic matters) by T. L. Friedman (International Herald Tribune, 100, p. 6) that clearly and simply says what, in fields other than ecumenics and theology, is routine thinking (the italics have been editorially inserted):
|
"Systematic misunderstanding arises when your framework and the other person's framework are so fundamentally different that it cannot be corrected by providing more information." (He goes on to explain that economic "globalization" has opposite meanings for some peoples: "adapting to a threat coming from the outside" vs. "increasing their own freedoms.") |
It is the same with respect to the vast difference between the Orthodox energy-ontology paradigm and the late-Medićval paradigms of Western Christianity--which (as a result of the about seven and a half centuries of barbarism and illiteracy of the Latin-Teutonic Dark Ages) lost their lineal continuity with the (divinely ordained) original Greek-language energetic framework of the Bible and Eastern Christianity--and were in fact derived from Islamic Cordova. Until it is recognized by Christian thinkers that "systematic misunderstand- ng arises when your framework and the other person's framework are so fundamentally different that it cannot be corrected by providing more information" . . . and until it is accepted that beliefs form an interconnected system (a lattice rather than a list of disconnected items), . . . heedless commentators will go on maintaining the pretence that East and West are just saying the same things in different ways. The very contrary is true: We often say the same things with vastly different presuppositions, contexts, and meanings. Hence, the vain notion that "more information" on details of history, more detailed analysis, etc., will yield greater similarities among us on essential matters is an illusion that can only blind a person to the real issues.
Hits
on this website since 11-22-98 
