[Download] "Practice of Curiosity (Essay)" by Currents in Theology and Mission " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Practice of Curiosity (Essay)
- Author : Currents in Theology and Mission
- Release Date : January 01, 2011
- Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 230 KB
Description
Does curiosity deserve a place on the list of essential pastoral practices? You might not think so if you get your information about curiosity from standard reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias. I looked up "curious" and "curiosity" in the 1971 unabridged edition of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language and found myself reading a series of descriptions of rather unpleasant, even obnoxious people. The dictionary definition was an unusually long one. It included four meanings of curiosity, but only the first meaning was laudatory, and only partially so at that: (1) "Desirous of learning or knowing; inquisitive." It goes on to describe "inquisitive" as "taking an undue (and petty) interest in others' affairs." From there on, it is downhill all the way. "Prying, meddlesome" is the second meaning. The third meaning is "highly unusual, odd, strange." The fourth meaning is "indelicate, indecent, or obscene [regarding books]." The dictionary wraps up its treatment of "curious" with this line: "'curious' implies a desire to know what is not properly ones concern." There are significant chapters in church history that do not speak well of human curiosity. Visit any of the countless web sites that are maintained by groups of militant atheists. If you are a Christian believer, you will find yourself taunted by Augustine's condemnation of curiosity as sin, and by the church's condemnation of Galileo for having been curious about the nature of the physical universe. The favorite quote from Augustine is this: "There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity." When Augustine left home at age 17 to study in Carthage, he engaged in what he later came to regret as a misspent youth of drunkenness and sexual promiscuity. He attributed this to the curiosity that was awakened within him through his studies. Thus he consigned curiosity to a catalog of vices.