Re: confession?

On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 15:59:13 -0000, Karen Leonard
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Zara Baxter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> expressed the thought in
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: 
>
>> On 2 Dec 2003 13:45:05 GMT, Manny Olds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> 
>>>Irina Rempt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday 02 December 2003 12:37 Manny Olds wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Zara Baxter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>> In this case, there are almost as many priests as there are
>>>>>> parishoners (more evidence of the wrongness) for story reasons.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What do all these priests do when they are not hearing a
>>>>> confession? Who feeds them? How?
>>>
>>>> And do the priests confess, and to whom? Quis custodiet ipsos
>>>> custodes? 
>>>
>>>Do the priests marry? Because otherwise, who will marry the women?
>>>(Run the numbers: typically there are fewer men around than women to
>>>start with. Take roughly half your population--presumably all
>>>male--out of the marriage pool, and who is left?)
>> 
>> Every second son in a family must join the priesthood. (some actually
>> make it that far; others.. don't. The priests are celibate, by nature.
>> 
>> I haven't pondered the extra women, although a number are sent to
>> nunneries
>
>I take this bit as evidence that you have a great deal more thinking to 
>do on the hypothetical religion and culture and environment before you 
>are ready to drag this project out into public view.  Right now, as I 
>think you can see, it just doesn't hold together.

Thanks for your thoughts. I've had some very clear thoughts on why
people don't think it holds together, which have been very helpful.

>And if you think Catholics won't think you're aiming your religious 
>depiction at them as some kind of diatribe, you're mistaken.  It's far 
>too obviously derived from a quick, angry exposure to Catholic churches 
>not to be one.  

To answer your first point, it's not derived from a quick angry
exposure to the Catholic church. I'm neither quick, nor angry, by
nature, and I certainly don't direct anger at things that give a great
deal of comfort and community to people. I want to explore an aspect
of vampirism, specifically "what if vampires were the dominant
lifeform", and extrapolated - this is just the shape it took.

The only real link to cathlicism is that I felt some readers may feel
it has a link, when reading, initially. If I could use that to give a
sense of "wrongness", I'm all for it, but it seems that the
strangeness I';m already including makes it unneccesary. So be it. 

>Which is another reason to do a lot more work on the 
>world-building, so the ancillary reactions won't get in the way of 
>telling the story.

I get the impression that you are somewhat irritated in this post.

If I've given you the impression that I was intending to attack or in
some way denigrate the Catholic church, I assure that that wasn't my
intention, and if I've offended you, I'm sorry. 

Zara
-- 
I got into Clarion South 2004, held in Brisbane! Yay me!
My Clarion/writing journal and nano updates are at www.vile-temptress.org
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