Anybody out there "pro-choice"?

[WillieWonka]

Morality as a set of right and wrong based on religious values should not be entered into the legal discussion. If we were to do that we would have to give credence to the wiccan, satanic, and protestant views of morality. The vegans believe it is immoral to eat meat and I do not want them to have a venue to push their skewed view of morality on me

The right thing to do can also be based on other factors such as ethical conduct, social norms, and agreed to ground rules for the stable conduct of society. Issues like theft, murder are immoral but are also violations of ethical conduct, social norms, and the rules for conduct of a stable society.

So While I do believe that right and wrong should be considered, religious morality should not be considered.

Wiccans, vegans, and protestants are all free to bring ther beliefs to bear in discussion and development of legislation. Nothing stops them.

I agree other factors can also enter into discussions of legislation. There is absolutely no limit on what can be introduced to discussion of legislation.

 

[Eddie_Mac]

Stop feeding the troll.

Eddie Mac

 

[WillieWonka]

Yes, and hair and arms and legs and eyes, and ears… but the lack of one of those things does make someone non human in a legal sense.

Therefore, under the standards of the Church, that which is lacking a soul is not a human being. So, if belated ensoulment is the case, prior to ensoulment, the entity is not a human being.

 

[WillieWonka]

Allowing for the theoretical possibility is different than believing or stating such as fact.

I agree. But does allowing for it indicate poor rationality?

 

[WillieWonka]

At some point the structure of the cell will change where it is no longer a skin cell voiding your arguement.

If a fertilized egg is capable of dividing in a womb and gestating to birth, and a skin cell is capable of dividing in a womb and gestating to birth, then does the skin cell demand the same treatment as the fertilized egg?

 

[WillieWonka]

Then that would overturn many things such as the patriot act and even the vast majority of law enforcement.

No. Under the current opinion that the Constitution has a right to privacy, the Patriot Act stands against challenge. Removing a right removes a challenge to the Patriot At and law enforcement. Removing the right strengthens the Patriot Act.

The 1973 Roe Vs. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court by finding a right to privacy in the Constitution. If the Court said this right did not exist, then Roe would be open to much stronger challenge.

 

[WillieWonka]

Double post deleted.

 

[limerick]

The Church teaches in general, but you are asking about the particular. People who drive 90 mph get tickets, right? they are doing a bad thing, right? So if your driver’s ed teacher tells you, Driving at 90 mph is wrong, against the law, and will get you into trouble, then what do you think?

But if you are an emergency vehicles driver, you might drive at 90 mph. What the teacher told you in your class will not apply.

Those teaching your catechism classes did not have time to outline every possible conceivable deviation from the general notions of moral theology which they needed to teach you. To teach you that thinking about committing a mortal sin is as bad as committing it is what a very general teaching of the Church is. This ought to keep the students from thinking a great deal about committing mortal sins, and if they students do not refrain from thinking about committing mortal sins, when they confess, the confessor will be able to deal with the *particular *scenario presented to him.

But those students would not have known that they needed to confess their thoughts had the nuns not taught them the general rule.

Honestly, once a person is in a state of mortal sin, there’s not a *worse *situation he can be in, but there are levels of mortal sin from God’s point of view.

But the solution to all of this is very simple: the person has only to go to a confessor and have their sins absolved. It’s not like the Church proposes a problem and then keeps the solution a secret.

**If the nuns could not take the time to teach the entirety of the doctrine then who is responsible to impart correct, authentic catechesis to children? Their parents? And I’m not talking about just mortal sins here - I mean thinking about stealing a penny candy is just as sinful in God’s eyes as actually stealing the penny candy.

Round and round we go. If we can’t stop our minds from considering the spiritual implications of sinning without garnering culpability for actually committing the sins we are pondering, it appears that the deck is severely stacked against us.

Maybe free will is a sham.

Limerick **

 

[royal_archer]

If a fertilized egg is capable of dividing in a womb and gestating to birth, and a skin cell is capable of dividing in a womb and gestating to birth, then does the skin cell demand the same treatment as the fertilized egg?

A skin cell would not naturally become a fully developed human being like a fertilized egg would.

 

[royal_archer]

I agree. But does allowing for it indicate poor rationality?

Not shutting the door on an issue that has not been fully vetted is a rational decision.

Would you also like to discuss whether intellegent aliens have a right to life. I don’t believe the church has ruled on if and when they get a soul either.

 

[WillieWonka]

A skin cell would not naturally become a fully developed human being like a fertilized egg would.

Put them next to each other in petri dishes and neither would divide at all. If a fertilized egg is in a petri dish does it have a different status than if it is in a woman? Both would have to be implanted in a uterus before they would divide.

When the Koreans do this, we’ll learn a tremendous amount.

 

[royal_archer]

No. Under the current opinion that the Constitution has a right to privacy, the Patriot Act stands against challenge. Removing a right removes a challenge to the Patriot At and law enforcement. Removing the right strengthens the Patriot Act.

The 1973 Roe Vs. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court by finding a right to privacy in the Constitution. If the Court said this right did not exist, then Roe would be open to much stronger challenge.

I missread you previous post. All law enforcement is theoretically a violation of privacy. That would be an interesting way of getting that travesty overturned…Use RVWade as a precident to overturn a drug possession conviction.

 

[royal_archer]

Put them next to each other in petri dishes and neither would divide at all. If a fertilized egg is in a petri dish does it have a different status than if it is in a woman? Both would have to be implanted in a uterus before they would divide…

A petri dish is not a natural condition for a conceived baby.

When the Koreans do this, we’ll learn a tremendous amount.

Some would argue that we learned a lot from the Nazis experimentation. Ends don’t justify the means.

 

[WillieWonka]

Not shutting the door on an issue that has not been fully vetted is a rational decision.

Would you also like to discuss whether intellegent aliens have a right to life. I don’t believe the church has ruled on if and when they get a soul either.

I’m not aware of any Church teaching on aliens either, but it surely can be considered as a thought experiment.

Suppose aliens land in a ship far more advanced than anything we have. They roll out on their four legs and begin an intelligent conversation with us via computer screen. They teach us mathematics, science, history of other galactic races, etc.

But, we are lucky, because he Church has provided a teaching on ensoulment of the human species. They don’t know when it happens. Perhaps they won’t know about the aliens either.

 

[WillieWonka]

I missread you previous post. All law enforcement is theoretically a violation of privacy. That would be an interesting way of getting that travesty overturned…Use RVWade as a precident to overturn a drug possession conviction.

Privacy is a strong argument against drug enforcement.

Note that the privacy provision of the Alaska Constitution was used to strike down the Alaska law against personal use of marijuana.

In another area, Lawrence vs Texas relied on privacy in striking down a Texas law oullawing homosexual acts between consenting adults. That finding made all such laws invalid.

 

[WillieWonka]

A petri dish is not a natural condition for a conceived baby.

Some would argue that we learned a lot from the Nazis experimentation. Ends don’t justify the means.

I realize a petri dish is not a natural condition. But let’s say they are in a petri dish, as happens in fertility treatment. If the fertilized egg were implanted it would divide and gestate. Suppose the Korean skin cell in the next dish would divide and gestate in also implanted.

Can we discard both petri dishes?.

 

[St_Francis]

**If the nuns could not take the time to teach the entirety of the doctrine then who is responsible to impart correct, authentic catechesis to children? Their parents? And I’m not talking about just mortal sins here - I mean thinking about stealing a penny candy is just as sinful in God’s eyes as actually stealing the penny candy. **

Well, this is the situation. Moral theology is something which has 2000 years of thinking behind it and people are still getting PhDs in it. In the same way that we don’t get a “full” education in physics in elementary school, we don’t get the full course in moral theology.

The nuns who were teaching you taught what has been traditionally taught, under the impression that the details would be worked out as your life went along. They may have disproportionately emphasized mortal sin, but that was with the understanding that those details would be worked out either later on or in confession.

For example, we are taught that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass. That’s the general rule. So you’re unconscious in the hospital one Sunday, and of course you remember the rule and confess that you missed Mass because you were… And the priest says, well, God doesn’t expect you to do the impossible. Really, the mortal sin comes in when you just roll over and say I really don’t feel like going to Mass today, I’m going back to sleep.

So when your newborn keeps you up all night and you just can’t wake up for Mass one Sunday, and you confess that, the priest says, well, the duties of your state of life override that; it’s one thing if you were caring for a baby and another if you had been out drinking too late the night before.

And little by little, you get all the information you need through the course of your life.

Round and round we go. If we can’t stop our minds from considering the spiritual implications of sinning without garnering culpability for actually committing the sins we are pondering, it appears that the deck is severely stacked against us.

Maybe free will is a sham.

Limerick

There’s a difference between contemplating a sin and considering the spiritual implications of hypothetically committing a sin. The type of “thinking” that the nuns were talking about is much stronger than idle speculation or errant thoughts floating through one’s head; it’s just that the nuns knew that most of the children wouldn’t quite get that difference, and that keeping them far away approaching mortal sin is better than erring in the opposite direction.

But if someone invites you to a party and you are thinking about it, and then realize that the likelihood of your missing Mass by being out too late is really high, and that would be a mortal sin, then that certainly does not constitute a mortal sin.

 

[limerick]

Well, this is the situation. Moral theology is something which has 2000 years of thinking behind it and people are still getting PhDs in it. In the same way that we don’t get a “full” education in physics in elementary school, we don’t get the full course in moral theology.

The nuns who were teaching you taught what has been traditionally taught, under the impression that the details would be worked out as your life went along. They may have disproportionately emphasized mortal sin, but that was with the understanding that those details would be worked out either later on or in confession.

For example, we are taught that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass. That’s the general rule. So you’re unconscious in the hospital one Sunday, and of course you remember the rule and confess that you missed Mass because you were… And the priest says, well, God doesn’t expect you to do the impossible. Really, the mortal sin comes in when you just roll over and say I really don’t feel like going to Mass today, I’m going back to sleep.

So when your newborn keeps you up all night and you just can’t wake up for Mass one Sunday, and you confess that, the priest says, well, the duties of your state of life override that; it’s one thing if you were caring for a baby and another if you had been out drinking too late the night before.

And little by little, you get all the information you need through the course of your life.

There’s a difference between contemplating a sin and considering the spiritual implications of hypothetically committing a sin. The type of “thinking” that the nuns were talking about is much stronger than idle speculation or errant thoughts floating through one’s head; it’s just that the nuns knew that most of the children wouldn’t quite get that difference, and that keeping them far away approaching mortal sin is better than erring in the opposite direction.

But if someone invites you to a party and you are thinking about it, and then realize that the likelihood of your missing Mass by being out too late is really high, and that would be a mortal sin, then that certainly does not constitute a mortal sin.

**
Yes … conveniently stacked on the side of the Church. Nuns make judgment calls about the intelligence of their students and dumb them down, never thinking that the message they carry to these kids stunts their growth rather than encouraging it.

I am honestly tired of it all. I have turned a thousand stones in my adult years looking for a party who is willing to say “We did the wrong thing, we’re sorry we spoke to you like a two-year-old, we didn’t know that children have minds and imaginations”. The Church is not responsible, the nuns and priests are not responsible, the lay teachers are not responsible - everybody has an airtight alibi for the days when such half-baked catechism was thrown at me.

I’m getting there. I’m getting to that place where I can finally rest, knowing that leaving the Catholic Church was the right thing for me. Being a Catholic has been the most unrewarding, fear-riddled, punishment-centric experience I never asked for. I’m grateful that I didn’t raise my daughter to be a Catholic so she can be truly ignorant of all this stuff so maybe at least she will have a shot at a happy life, a happy death, and a happy afterlife.

It permeates. It metastasizes. It’s over.

L **

 

[St_Francis]

**
Yes … conveniently stacked on the side of the Church. Nuns make judgment calls about the intelligence of their students and dumb them down, never thinking that the message they carry to these kids stunts their growth rather than encouraging it.

I am honestly tired of it all. I have turned a thousand stones in my adult years looking for a party who is willing to say “We did the wrong thing, we’re sorry we spoke to you like a two-year-old, we didn’t know that children have minds and imaginations”. The Church is not responsible, the nuns and priests are not responsible, the lay teachers are not responsible - everybody has an airtight alibi for the days when such half-baked catechism was thrown at me.**

What you are asking is that in a particular situation a person who hears only one side of the story says that the other side is wrong. Who is going to do that?

What I will say is that *many *educational systems, not just Catholic, were like that, maybe not quite at that time because there was movement in educational circles outside the Church which did not enter into the Church until later. And there is a lot of history that goes into what was happening then (1950s and early 1960s) in Catholic education and in the Church in general.

From what I can tell, there was a lot of bad stuff going on. The changes in Catholic education which occurred in the 1960s were an attempt to fix those problems–an obvious admission that what was going on was not working. Unfortunately, the results the changes brought in were even more disastrous to Catholic education that what had occurred before, and so it did not really become clear that what was going on before was bad. Instead, it seemed to many that what was going on before was better, and the result was that the problems were no really perceived as problems, because the results were seen as better than those of the solution. (I sure hope this is making sense.)

It is very difficult to look back and say, oh those people were so wrong, because if one could talk with the people, one night easily find out about additional details which would change one’s view of the situation. For example, one of the probable sources of problems in the Irish schools in the early part of the 1900s was the sudden influx of many orphans due to the First World War, at a time when people really did not know how to best help children whose whole worlds had fallen apart.

Additionally, it seems that many people involved in shaping Catholic education in the US and in Ireland tended to be those of the upper classes who would not inherit, and they brought certain non-Catholic views which were around at that time about evolution and eugenics, etc. As a result, many bright young Catholics were “pushed down” because they were seen to be destined for a certain course. The students of parochial schools were rarely seen as individuals. And there are those who think that because the Irish were trained in France, that a Jansenistic streak entered in.

I cannot judge a particular case, but what I can say is that, yes, there was a lot going on that was wrong in Catholic and non-Catholic education at those times, so it is quite likely that your judgement of the situation is correct.

I’m getting there. I’m getting to that place where I can finally rest, knowing that leaving the Catholic Church was the right thing for me. Being a Catholic has been the most unrewarding, fear-riddled, punishment-centric experience I never asked for. I’m grateful that I didn’t raise my daughter to be a Catholic so she can be truly ignorant of all this stuff so maybe at least she will have a shot at a happy life, a happy death, and a happy afterlife.

It permeates. It metastasizes. It’s over.

L

You say that you raised your daughter without Catholicism… it was very hard for me to forgive my mother for raising me without Catholicism after I returned to the Church–she left the Church when I was very young. I’m not saying that the same would happen to you, only that things are not always what they seem.

I am extremely sorry that your experience growing up as a Catholic was so awful. I hope that you will be able at some time to forgive those people, to let them go on to God’s judgement, not because they deserve it or anything like that, but because that is the way that you will find peace.

 

[WillieWonka]

error