Saints and Sinners

[Ferretfancy]

A few nights ago I watched the episode of Dad's Army in which the pompous but entertaining Captain Mannering had an unfortunate confrontation with his permanently sozzled reprobate brother. The latter was fun for a while, but perhaps a little wearing at length.

The thought struck me that many contributors here could be slotted into one or the other category.

Which category fits you best ? ( Not counting New Year's Eve ! )

[Pabmusic]

A few nights ago I watched the episode of Dad's Army in which the pompous but entertaining Captain Mannering had an unfortunate confrontation with his permanently sozzled reprobate brother. The latter was fun for a while, but perhaps a little wearing at length.

The thought struck me that many contributors here could be slotted into one or the other category.

Which category fits you best ? ( Not counting New Year's Eve ! )

I didn't see the episode, but can (very) vaguely recall it from 30 or more years ago.

My answer would be that I'm a saint, of course. It's the only possible answer (on the basis that, if I am a saint, I'll say so, but if I'm a sinner, I'll almost certainly say I'm a saint).

In truth, I'd loathe being either.

[scottycelt]

A few nights ago I watched the episode of Dad's Army in which the pompous but entertaining Captain Mannering had an unfortunate confrontation with his permanently sozzled reprobate brother. The latter was fun for a while, but perhaps a little wearing at length.

The thought struck me that many contributors here could be slotted into one or the other category.

Which category fits you best ? ( Not counting New Year's Eve ! )

Both ...

Who's this mysterious 'Captain Mannering' anyway, ferret ...?

[Flosshilde]

Which is the saint & which is the sinner?

Pabs, would a saint necessarily know they were, still less declare that they were? Some, like Teresa of Calcutta, might go out of their way to profess their saintliness, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are saints.

Anyway, that contribution to a (presumably) light-hearted thread probably marks me out as the pompous one

[Pabmusic]

... Some, like Teresa of Calcutta, might go out of their way to profess their saintliness, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are saints...

Quite. If I were a saint - and realised it - I'd not be a saint.

...Anyway, that contribution to a (presumably) light-hearted thread probably marks me out as the pompous one

Never! I'm infinitely more pompous.

[salymap]

Anyone who is all one or the other is boring.

I am a mixture and hope to remain so. If it doesn't stop raining soon though I can't answer for myself.

[Pabmusic]

Both ...

Who's this mysterious 'Captain Mannering' anyway, ferret ...?

Hmm... I've a feeling Ferret has missed a recurrent standing joke there.

[scottycelt]

Some, like Teresa of Calcutta, might go out of their way to profess their saintliness, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are saints.

Anyway, that contribution to a (presumably) light-hearted thread probably marks me out as the pompous one

...heaven forbid.

Compliments of the Season, Flossie!

To be fair to Mother Teresa, who selflessly devoted her entire life to some of the poorest and sickest in the world, can you quote one single sentence she ever uttered or wrote where she professed her own 'saintliness'?

Just for the factual record, you understand ...

[Nick Armstrong]

If it doesn't stop raining soon though I can't answer for myself.

Arthur Lowe's turn as Barry Mainwaring is one of my favourite TV performances... The scene where the two brothers confront one another in Barry's hotel room is wonderful writing. It never occurred to me to fit either category - like saly, I'm going for the mixture

[Flosshilde]

Never! I'm infinitely more pompous.

I wasn't competing for the title of 'Board .. ' - what do you call someone who's pompous? (I don't think 'boring' is allowed)

[Flosshilde]

...heaven forbid.

Compliments of the Season, Flossie!

To be fair to Mother Teresa, who selflessly devoted her entire life to some of the poorest and sickest in the world, can you quote one single sentence she ever uttered or wrote where she professed her own 'saintliness'?

Just for the factual record, you understand ...

And to you, Scotty. I hope you enjoyed your shopping trip yesterday. It's good to think that someone' is keeping the Manchester economy going!

I'm not going to plough through all of Teresa's sayings. It's possible to 'profess' something through manner & actions. Her 'humility', which by all accounts (or some, at least) masked a rather ruthless person, managed to project a 'saintly' aura.

[mangerton]

Depending on whom you asked, and when, you'd get a variety of answers, I suspect. I'd have to go for the mixture, but with saly, scotty and Cali, I'm in good company.

[MrGongGong]

To be fair to Mother Teresa, who selflessly devoted her entire life to some of the poorest and sickest in the world, :

Shame it didn't extend to the rights of women
or those with AIDS

hardly a saint at all ...........

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well having just received the grumpy old git of the year award from family at xmas i must be a sinner ... and there was me thinking i was at least saint like .....

[Serial_Apologist]

I think there are some serious questions conveniently raised here. OK here goes...

One can either say that one is less or more than one's idea of oneself - how we appear is often if not always at variance with how we think of ourselves, or even how we feel ourselves to be, moment to moment. Then again, how one perceives oneself is inevitably an edited, memories-based version of a totality, eg everything that has happened to one, which some mystics would regard as co-extensive with all that is and has ever been - we are and have always been what we eat, breathe, etc etc. But then the orthodox God people, Judaic, Islamic, Catholic, Protestant, would come along and tell those of us who thought that way that we were being presumptious to identify ourselves with All That Is; that the best we can rely on is a single-line BT connection with the Almighty called prayer, and places called churches, synagogues and mosques where we can go to be reminded of this fact.

Lao Tsu, I think it was, who said that since good and bad, saint and sinner, are just opposite poles of an inter-dependent dialectic, the one unable to do without the other, it's better not always to pursue the good, as the bad will always be on the catch-up. In our Judaeo-Christian heritage, however, we're taught that there are absolute values. This obscures the inconvenient reality that all values are relative, though, like God and Father Christmas, it probably serves some use as a temporary gambit for the upbringing of wayward children who have not yet learned that ethics is just a code or unacknowledged agreement transmitted generation to generation, like common law - by means of amendments to which, and the odd revolution, humanity has just about managed to get along in balance with the environment's carrying capacity without destroying itself. The main problem (as I see it) is that it (humanity) has now for several hundred years, managed to do so by virtue of being dominated by that part of itself which is itself dominated by believing itself God-endowed to have one over on the rest of the natural order. And that natural order includes its top-dog self.

Until the Judaeo-Christian tradition came along with bible and gun and "proved" the superiority of its way of thinking and doing things to the "lesser peoples", the rest of humanity just about managed to bumble along on combinations of superstition and practical empiricism. Western science may have come along as an adjunct to capitalism's need to circumvent the rights of others to their traditions and social mores, all of course in the name of enriching its own ruling class, and to a lesser extent those drawn from the fields into making them rich; but it can at least give us the picture of an interdependency and mutuality of constituent elements (physical and biological) non-dependent on the fairy tales that had and have long been used to explain our imperfectedness, nowadays manifesting among general self-doubts and individual isolation in such profitable things as body image problems. One we can do without those; for while it may be true that there is no salvation in this or any other existence outside of ourselves, there is also the possibility of recognition of no alternative BUT to trust in - for want of some better word - an inner wisdom: the one that governs the involuntary processes that keep us alive without the lungs and heart needing to tell themselves to breathe and to beat until time is called... because the only alternative to trusting that inner process would consist in a mistrust that would need to mistrust its own mistrust in order not to be in contradiction.

But then, of course, the God people have an easy answer for that one, too, which they call salvation.