Call Me Heretic

I have a fairly short list of other blogs I visit on a regualr basis.  Mostly, I challenge the writers of the posts on those blogs about their attitudes towards the world.  Some of them have a pretty narrow focus of shoulds and shouldn'ts, you see, and they want to make those rules not only for themselves, but for everyone else, as well.  They want to make them LAW.  The breaking of which would be punishable by...whatever.  [And yes, I know that is a dependent clause standing all  by its lonesome.  I know the grammar rules.  Sometimes I break them.  It's called a literary device.  I use them frequently.  Get used to it.]

So, I'm on one of the religion blogs, and I express my opinion on the blogger's desire to remove a woman's choice to end an unwanted pregnancy, and someone calls me a heretic.  A Catholic someone.  As in pope and all those old men in skirts.  That the commenter was Catholic IS pertinent to my reaction, which was to get my hackles up and fire back a retort regarding the Inquisition.  And then I remembered something that sent me to my etymological books*...

Heresy comes from a Greek root meaning, "choice."  And heretic originally meant, "one who chooses," and by extension, "one who thinks for himself."  How did the word get from something so benign to being considered such an insult?  You have to think in a religious sense, because that's where it was first applied on a broad basis.  In those days, one was expected most strenuously NOT to think for oneself!  Doing so put one athwart the teachings of the Christian (Roman Catholic) Church, who had absolute authority over the lives of everyone in its grasp.  And the Church did not take kindly to contradictions and opposing ideas from those it considered its properly/servants.  Thus, the word heretic came to indicate anyone who opposed the (again, Roman Catholic) Church and its teachings, and from there to someone who hates the Church and is trying to destroy it...which was the context in which it was being used on me.  Quite unfairly, I might add.

So, far from being an insult -- even an intended one -- being called a heretic is actually a very high compliment!  Much to the chagrin of the commenter who tried to start the fight... ;)  And to him, I belatedly sent a hearty,Thank you!

Call me heretic.  It's what I am.

_____

*The book in question is Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto, published by Arcade.

On Illusions

We are what we are, as others see us.  Mirrors lie to us all the time, and we believe them because they show us what we want to see.

For instance, I want to see myself as a blogger who actually uses this platform as a way of communicating with fellow beings, and letting them communicate with me and one another.  Will that happen? 

Time will tell.

What's your favorite illusion...?