Similarities

7 comments

• “Having an abortion is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to have an abortion; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.”

  Murdering ones 10 yr. old child is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to murder that child; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.

  Stealing you neighbor’s car is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to steal that car; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.

  Homosexually raping a teengage boy is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to rape that boy; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.

  Sounds Catholic to me…

• This is the part that messes up peoples’ minds about ethics.

  Yes, you and each person have free will, which is of inestimable value.  This means that it is literally up to you to decide what you will do with the problems in your life—whether you will seek God, or seek evil or seek the easy way.  God have designed it that way, and that fact should never be taken lightly.

  The problem is that in order to choose well, a person has to understand the difference between right and wrong.  Yes, some choices are objectively right and some objectively wrong.  Jeffrey Dahmer’s choices were objectively wrong, for instance.

  This is where the evil comes in when it comes to moral abdication of authority.  Morally abdicating teaching authority for many people places them in a situation where they have just a ton of trouble understanding morals.

  Some people, whether people like to be told this or not, have very weak ability to tell right from wrong.  Perhaps they have an ill-formed conscience, or have seen things they should not have seen and it hurt their ability to understand ethics.  This actually happens frequently.  Perhaps it’s just that they are not thoughtful or not intelligent about some things.  Some people are clueless about morals and have to follow rules—period.  Admit it.  And lastly, there are a certain number of people who choose to do evil for the hell of it, or because they think they can get ahead of other people if they use them for their own goals.

  Soo, yes, of course Domenico and Sinner you are correct.  It is just not as simple as the gross simplification in the phrase that was posted.  This phrase (about having an abortion) is far too blunt an instrument to mean much of anything ethically.  It’s a pretty stupid statement, actually. 

  But such are the statements that so often pass for moral decisions these days.  It’s one of the reasons we’re in the messes we’re in.

• Holy——well Holy Cow,

  michigancatholic, we agree on something.  Your statement is spot on.  Could not agree with your assessment more.

  Camilam

• It may be a stupid statement, but it’s the one you hear from pro-abortion politicians all the time. Just as the second statement is pretty stupid.

• “It may be a stupid statement, but ityou have to start with a definition.  (What are you going to teach?)  A definition is composed of 2 parts:  what a thing is and what it is not.  Showing people only what it is not will not teach anything—it’s only half the definition. 

  In order to teach christian life to people, we must show (tell, scream, demonstrate, preach) what it IS (not cultural delicacy but holiness!), and then show (point out, identify) what it is not.

  [Need I remind you that holiness doesn’t always consist of being politically correct and non-confrontational, but rather in being obedient to scripture, tradition and the teachings of Jesus Christ.  We lose a lot of people to evangelicals over this.]

  And then there have to be rules because that’s all some people can understand.  People don’t like to be told this, but the number of people who can only operate under rules is very large—some estimates cite half the population, simply because of the weakness of understanding of right and wrong, and also the modern tendency to try to twist right and wrong around (an outcome of intensive entertainment and advertizing psychology practiced on all of us).  Myself, I think it’s higher than that.

  People don’t learn the basic concepts of logic in school anymore and use the idea of counterexample in logical fallacious ways, causing everything to be a reduction to absurdity.  This accomplished, then they simply go on to do what they wanted to do in the first place.  This is not morals, nor is it logical or moral.

  So we need to begin anew to teach people morals, starting with moral rules, probably.
  Putting something like this in place makes everyone mad though.  =)  It’s like trying to reform ancient Rome.  It’s a hell of a lot of work and I see few actually attempting it.

  So the contemporary “bread and circuses” go on, eh?

• Alfredo, if you think Chris Matthews is bad, take a look at Emmanuel College’s 2004 Commencement Speaker…Mary Beth Cahill.  Cahill, a member of Emmanuel’s Class of ‘76, is not only head of the John [B]F.[/B] Kerry for President campaign, but she’s also the former Executive Director of Emily’s List, which claims that “our grassroots network has helped elect 55 Democratic [B]pro-choice[/B] members of Congress, 11 senators, and seven governors. We know how to win.”  Cahill also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

  “A [B]Catholic[/B], liberal arts and sciences college in Boston, Emmanuel College prepares men and women with the skills to succeed in tomorrow’s world and the [B]social conscience to make a difference in that world[/B]. Founded in 1919 by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur…” 

  The name [B]Emmanuel[/B], meaning “God with us”, is of course a name of Jesus most often associated with the liturgical season of Advent, during which Jesus is literally a fetus growing in his mother’s womb, as the world waits expectantly for his birth. 

  “Cahill began her career in 1976, working in [B]Father Robert Drinan[/B]‘s congressional office…”  That’s the same year she graduated from Emmanuel.

• Thanks seamole. I don’t know what happened to the “Catholic” colleges, or even to the Catholic Church, in the last forty years or so.
  But wait. What is the correct approach for dealing with a Catholic priest who preaches that it is arguable within Catholic theology to assert that you are personally opposed to abortion while at the same time you support laws to make abortion legal. I know people want to deny Communion to politicians with that point of view, but I haven’t heard much about excommunicating Catholic priests or nuns with a similar point of view.  After all, the priest is the one who is giving out the Sacraments, and the one who has been trained in Catholic theology.