Ah, good point. You're right - there are at least two ways of understanding more reasonable disputes:
Being Catholic (or whatever) requires assent to some one specific set of committments/beliefs; but, there is room for discussion about what those beliefs are. Or,
There are a number of more-or-less valid ways of being Catholic/understanding what it is to be Catholic
I should have been more careful, and not implied that the second was the way to go (incidentally, I don't think that there are right and wrong ways to understand 'democracy,' too, so I guess I'm more in the first camp than I may have sounded). My point was more that, even if the first is the case (there is only one way to be Catholic, but reasonable people disagree about what that is), it's not *necessarily* hypocritical, disingenuous, or ignorant (though it may be incorrect) for someone to consider herself Catholic even if she disagrees with some belief you think is central to Catholicism.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-07-09 06:08 pm (UTC)I should have been more careful, and not implied that the second was the way to go (incidentally, I don't think that there are right and wrong ways to understand 'democracy,' too, so I guess I'm more in the first camp than I may have sounded). My point was more that, even if the first is the case (there is only one way to be Catholic, but reasonable people disagree about what that is), it's not *necessarily* hypocritical, disingenuous, or ignorant (though it may be incorrect) for someone to consider herself Catholic even if she disagrees with some belief you think is central to Catholicism.