Theos-Talk Archives (October 1996 Message tl00057)

>His entire purpose seems to be and attempt to discredit ISIS -
>which is admittedly not perfect; but neither are his own
>sources! - and not to engage in any genuine truth-seeking.


Hi Alan,

You may be absolutely right about Abrantes, his entire purpose
may be to discredit ISIS and is not engaged in truth seeking.  If
this is so, he will sooner or later convince himself that he has
succeeded in discrediting ISIS regardless of what we may have to
say.  But I'm not absolutely sure this is his motivation.  If his
motivation is to evangelize, then I think he is intelligent
enough to quickly find out that he is wasting his time here.
"Daniel in the Lion's den" figured it out quickly enough.  But as
for Abrantes, he originally came on Theos-l saying that he wanted
to explore ISIS with someone.  I took it as a genuine inquiry and
felt that theos-l is not worth its weight in salt if no one would
engage him.  Since no one else came forward, I did.  Our
discussions have suggested to me that Abrantes is very capable of
critical thinking and he has demonstrated it on a number of
occasions.  The degree of his intellectual integrity, on the
other hand, remains to be seen.  At least Abrantes is reading
ISIS and responding to it.  I realize that he is far less
critical about his religious beliefs than he is about HPB's
arguments.  That is his own weakness.  But it is very human to be
less critical of our own beliefs than of opposing ones.

I think Abrantes was up front about his Christian beliefs.  After
all, in his first message, he stated that he was not a
Theosophist but a Catholic.  That is fine with me.  His religion
is his issue--not mine.  What gave us common ground for
discussion was his assertion that he found errors in ISIS, and
wanted to discuss them.  I responded that I have found errors
too.  (Surely, ISIS is a philosophical work, one should expect to
find errors.  Right?)  I felt that a critical discussion with
Abrantes concerning ISIS would be worth while, and be a
substantive contribution to theos-l.  After all, HPB raises a lot
of questions concerning Christianity that few people think to
ask.  Frankly, I was a bit disappointed to find almost no
participation in this discussion.  Perhaps there are only three
of us on theos-l who are interested in primitive Christianity and
its origins.  Or, perhaps, there are only two or three of us on
theos-l who are interested in this subject *and* are not
threatened by a critical discussion of Christianity.  I also
realize that Abrantes often finds "errors" by taking quotes out
of context, and/or by ignoring the overall premises HPB gave in
earlier chapters.  But I keep in mind that he is reading a
translation that may be flawed.  I also keep in mind that it is
very difficult for someone coming from one paradigm to follow
ideas from another paradigm.  But at least Abrantes engages the
text!  My experience has been that very few people in the
Theosophical Society are willing to make the effort that is
required to engage HPB's writings in the first place.  That
Abrantes is making this effort (regardless of his motivations)
makes him all the more interesting.

If the discussion ceases to be productive--that is, we keep
retracing the same ground over and over again, then I will bow
out.  I have little time for theos-l lately anyway.  But at the
moment, I still see the promise of a productive discussion.  And
if nothing else, I think those of us on theos-l who are well read
in Blavatsky, are obliged to respond to inquiries concerning her
writings.


Jerry