Message-Id: <199311081440.AA03630@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Mon, 8 Nov 1993 13:44:49 GMT
Reply-To: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: re'enai
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

Bob answers me:
++++++++>
 My envisioning of re'enai is a situation where someone says a remark
calculated to violate standard religious atmosphere/connotatyions/conventions.

I do not mean "sacrilege" as an accusation of someone elses sacrilege.
How about Galileo's "It still moves re'enai"?

non-spirittual would be re'ecu'i to me - something that simpoly does not
register on the rleigious scale.
>+++++++++

This seems bizarre to me. Spirituality (which is what I thought re'e meant)
has NOT THE SLIGHTEST THING to do with connotations or conventions. I demand
a word that expresses that I am speaking about my spiritual or non-spiritual
experience.
I accept that there might be a case for making 'non-spiritual/materialistic'
the mid-point (re'ecu'i), though I find it hard to think of what the negated
pole might be (Jorge's suggestion of a mixture of prosaic, materialistic and
philistine makes some sort of sense, but I see that as simply 'non-spiritual'
on the spiritual axis combined with some other things).

Sacrilege is several quite different things, only one of which seems to me to
fit re'enai in the slightest:
1) accepting and deliberately perverting the spiritual nature
of something (eg the Black Mass - re'evu'enai perhaps? - but it is still very
definitely re'e)
2) countering teaching or dogma that is attached to religious belief (eg
 Galileo.
I accept that some of his critics might have regarded his activities as re'enai,
but that is because they would see it as anti-spiritual, not because it was
simply counter to the Church's teachings. The person doing the countering is
unlikely to want to position himself on the re'e axis at all)
3)  cynical or cruel misapplication or travesty of matters which are of
spiritual significance to others. This meaning indeed contains re'enai,
but it contains other things as well - probably uunai


        Colin