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drpmjhess
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More precisely, I suppose he would consider himself a biochemist.
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mmortal03
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You completely ignored his point. We know you disagree with Dawkins. That isn’t the point. And anyway, what Dawkins argues is that impressing dogmatic fundamentalism (no matter whether it is religious, or another idealogy) upon children is child abuse. No matter how derisive Dawkins can be, it doesn’t invalidate his basics argument, and I have to agree with him on this issue.
Teaching children emphatically that the particular religious belief of their parents that they happen to be born into is 100% truth/fact actually literally breeds intolerance. And often this happens when the parents themselves can’t even logically argue for their faith, but they indoctrinate their children with it, anyway.
Exposing children to a moral system isn’t what is the problem. It is the forcing of such dogmatic views upon them by a superior with no room for critical thinking or education about how other moral systems think. Then, these parents think they can just drop their sheltered, narrow-minded little kids off to school into a diverse population of beliefs, and wonder why their kids (and now the kids all grown up are in our society teaching their kids) have problems with understanding and getting along with others.
Furthermore, such dogmatic impressing of beliefs leads to things like scrupulosity and Catholic guilt, which are just really warped psychological states that children (and adults) should not have to deal with. If, instead, these kids had just been allowed to mature without such dogmatic impression, to just think more for themselves generally about what religion may mean to them, and then as they got older, they could be gently exposed to the religion of their parents as a possibility, and not an order, to allow them to find the truth of the faith for themselves, they would be of much greater psychological health.
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mmortal03
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They don’t have to believe that evolution has the possibility of God intervening. Evolution doesn’t require that anything intervene into it for it to work. Just as God could hypothetically intervene into the process of evolution, he could intervene into any other theory of how life was created. Again, these people are not using evolution as an argument that God couldn’t exist (you can’t argue that God, definitively doesn’t exist), but that He doesn’t have to exist. And, anyway, this isn’t their only consideration for their atheism.
I have done a lot of looking into it lately in my life, and I would like to start a thread on it at some point. I will be completely up front with you: I was raised Catholic, and practiced the faith up until a few years ago, and was an active member here, but have recently turned toward agnostic atheism. However, my current mindset is not a statement of my disdain for Catholicism or something. I don’t have “hard feelings” or anything. I actually have a continued interest in the Catholic history, theology, and scripture, though it isn’t as high of a priority for me. To me, the atheistic arguments have made more sense to me as of late, but I will always leave open the possibility that that could change.
But now watch the tides turn as I have now removed the veil on my current position, as I will now be called out as the evil, stupid, non-credible atheist here by some (not by you, but by others). I have been a relatively long term participant on this forum prior to my current considerations. Hopefully people can realize this, and that I don’t have ulterior motives.
You see, I think ignorance breeds intolerance, and I think the perceived pejorative nature of the word “atheist” by many who are religious only demonstrates this point. For the longest time, the only reason I thought atheists were “bad people” was based on what I had been told, and not based on my own investigation. The more I investigated their arguments, the less of these kind of misconceptions I had. Don’t get me wrong, Richard Dawkins is quite belligerent and derisive in how he distributes his arguments. I can separate his demeanor from his arguments, however, and I seek to not come across to people in the way that he does.
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mulligan59
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To both the Doctor and Chuck,
Thanks, really, to you both, those last posts were direct, cogent, pointed to specifics, and rang of sincerity. I am not grounded in science, yet I firmly believe evolution not to be true. “Seeking Catholic” has engaged me on the other thread and now I have to try to learn something about, or at least think about the ramifications of his HRVs.
But I want to say to the Doctor, that perhaps because he lives in an academic world, with lots of well studied people, who also accept the Catholic perspective, that it may appear to him that belief in evolution has not damaged “faith” at large. But among most regular people (take me for example), who must work in the practical world, and get their information largely filtered through the popular media, it is an enourmous stumbling block. In the smallest of nutshells: “Well if the Bible is wrong here, well how can I beleive any of it?” It certainly isn’t the only, and perhaps not even the biggest problem in the Church, which problems include an extraordinary sense of relativism, (I’m talking morality, not science here), a tremendous ignorance of basic doctrines, a cavalier attitude towards sin, really almost a sense of apostasy regarding the value of other religions and the fear of adopting an attitude of certainty towards almost anything, In this sense, the notion that man is (or may be) just another “accident of chemistry”, I think is a first cause.
In recent years I’ve discovered (and its new to me though it may not be new) substantial arguments against evolution from science. You guys say they’ve been “exploded”, but you haven;t exploded them for me. “Real Catholic” has given me the first scientific argument for the position. I probably cannot prove it wrong from science. But no one can “prove” to me either, that evolution is “right”, as we necassarily (since no one can actually document what really happened over billions of years, and even the rapidly mutating viruses like AIDS, or rapidly generating animals like fruit flies, ultimately remain what they began as in every test) are limited to assumptions and amazing extrapolations to reach our conclusions.
Thanks, really, to you both, those last posts were direct, cogent, pointed to specifics, and rang of sincerity. I am not grounded in science, yet I firmly believe evolution not to be true. “Seeking Catholic” has engaged me on the other thread and now I have to try to learn something about, or at least think about the ramifications of his HRVs.
But I want to say to the Doctor, that perhaps because he lives in an academic world, with lots of well studied people, who also accept the Catholic perspective, that it may appear to him that belief in evolution has not damaged “faith” at large. But among most regular people (take me for example), who must work in the practical world, and get their information largely filtered through the popular media, it is an enourmous stumbling block. In the smallest of nutshells: “Well if the Bible is wrong here, well how can I beleive any of it?” It certainly isn’t the only, and perhaps not even the biggest problem in the Church, which problems include an extraordinary sense of relativism, (I’m talking morality, not science here), a tremendous ignorance of basic doctrines, a cavalier attitude towards sin, really almost a sense of apostasy regarding the value of other religions and the fear of adopting an attitude of certainty towards almost anything, In this sense, the notion that man is (or may be) just another “accident of chemistry”, I think is a first cause.
In recent years I’ve discovered (and its new to me though it may not be new) substantial arguments against evolution from science. You guys say they’ve been “exploded”, but you haven;t exploded them for me. “Real Catholic” has given me the first scientific argument for the position. I probably cannot prove it wrong from science. But no one can “prove” to me either, that evolution is “right”, as we necassarily (since no one can actually document what really happened over billions of years, and even the rapidly mutating viruses like AIDS, or rapidly generating animals like fruit flies, ultimately remain what they began as in every test) are limited to assumptions and amazing extrapolations to reach our conclusions.
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Chuck_H
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mulligan59
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You’re kidding me. I think we have far too much “tolerance”, far too little “guilt” and appreciation of the truth. It isn’t about getting along with others. It is about respect for the truth, God’s truth. We really are supposed to be disassociated from the world. Christ never said to be popular, study science, improve your intellect, rather he said we must accept it like “little children”.
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mmortal03
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First of all, I don’t think the majority of this thread has been meeting the category of Sacred Scripture very well, so it might be suitable to extract the specifically scripture parts and leave them here, and move the rest of the discussion to a different forum category.
Now to my response.
One example that springs to mind of religion making people do bad things (with this one not necessarily being guilt leading to the bad actions, but something similar) is that recent incident where the parents believed in not going to hospitals to get medical attention, but instead to just pray about the ailment, and this negligence led to their child dying. Now, that wasn’t an instance of a bad action committed by a Catholic, but is a general example of the kind of possible incident I am talking about.
Now as for the “tolerance” part, I have heard many conservative Catholics say that they think they have “too much tolerance” today, meaning that they have somehow grudgingly allowed the cultural shift towards the libertine to occur, and that they should be allowed to be more judgmental about other people who aren’t Catholic (usually they are criticizing the libertine actions of others).
I have no problem with free speech coming from Catholics or whomever else criticizing others actions, even if it is intolerant, but I also don’t think it is constructive, or makes the statements right. Just as Catholics have, other people have the right to believe what they want and say what they want, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else’s freedoms to do the same. Yes, I am a fan of the non-aggression principle.
That is the extent I can take this discussion unless you cite the specific things that you feel you are being too tolerant about. Otherwise, I would be acting presumptuously, which is never a good position to take in a discussion such as this. It only leads to misunderstanding and confusion.
My question for you is: What would be the purpose for your wanting to be more intolerant towards others? I guess we would have to talk about the specific issues to have that debate. I don’t think it is wise to just generally feel the need to be more intolerant.
Yes, even the interpretation of what the Church says varies from one Catholic to another. You don’t personally like the liberal ones.
He also never said to seek to advance laws to control those who don’t believe. (I am not presuming that that would be your position, just making a better example than Coca-Cola).
He also never said to breed intolerance, bigotry, hate, or pass judgment on others. He said to leave the judgment up to God.
Now, we can go into the arguments of how individual things in society you feel personally affect your rights as a human being, but that is the only way I think this can go to discuss it any further, by analyzing the specifics.
I guess the question becomes, that for people who think they personally know what is ‘true for everyone’, can they avoid becoming intolerant and bigoted? This goes along the lines of “If there is no real truth, then there is no reason for me to be tolerant” and “If there is no real truth, then we cannot place any limits on tolerance”, both of which are completely lame arguments. They are implying that without God, society will fall into total moral depravity and will become a world without justice, which is just a fantastic exaggeration.
Now to my response.
Which point am I kidding you about? Regarding the “guilt” part, I am not talking about a generic sense of the word, though even that could possibly be argued to lead people to become psychologically astray and/or commit actions that are harmful to themselves and others. But see the following link for what I was referring to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_guilt
One example that springs to mind of religion making people do bad things (with this one not necessarily being guilt leading to the bad actions, but something similar) is that recent incident where the parents believed in not going to hospitals to get medical attention, but instead to just pray about the ailment, and this negligence led to their child dying. Now, that wasn’t an instance of a bad action committed by a Catholic, but is a general example of the kind of possible incident I am talking about.
Now as for the “tolerance” part, I have heard many conservative Catholics say that they think they have “too much tolerance” today, meaning that they have somehow grudgingly allowed the cultural shift towards the libertine to occur, and that they should be allowed to be more judgmental about other people who aren’t Catholic (usually they are criticizing the libertine actions of others).
I have no problem with free speech coming from Catholics or whomever else criticizing others actions, even if it is intolerant, but I also don’t think it is constructive, or makes the statements right. Just as Catholics have, other people have the right to believe what they want and say what they want, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else’s freedoms to do the same. Yes, I am a fan of the non-aggression principle.
That is the extent I can take this discussion unless you cite the specific things that you feel you are being too tolerant about. Otherwise, I would be acting presumptuously, which is never a good position to take in a discussion such as this. It only leads to misunderstanding and confusion.
My question for you is: What would be the purpose for your wanting to be more intolerant towards others? I guess we would have to talk about the specific issues to have that debate. I don’t think it is wise to just generally feel the need to be more intolerant.
Speaking of presumptions, the presumption you are making here is that your understanding of the Catholic “truth” is the inarguable, definitive one, that you know it to be fact. I really don’t think that that is logically arguable at all. But as you have gone on and on here with your criticisms of scientific theories, you then talk about your own religious theory as being one that IS unequivocally provable and obvious.
I think that part is very debatable regarding Christians. There is a wide range of Christian lifestyles, with a range of the amount of interaction with the secular world, starting with the ascetic life, and going all the way to whatever your personally interpreted boundary you set for yourself is, I would say.
Yes, even the interpretation of what the Church says varies from one Catholic to another. You don’t personally like the liberal ones.Christ never said to do a lot of things. He never said to drink Coca-Cola, for instance. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, just because he never mentioned it.
He also never said to seek to advance laws to control those who don’t believe. (I am not presuming that that would be your position, just making a better example than Coca-Cola).
He also never said to breed intolerance, bigotry, hate, or pass judgment on others. He said to leave the judgment up to God.
Now, we can go into the arguments of how individual things in society you feel personally affect your rights as a human being, but that is the only way I think this can go to discuss it any further, by analyzing the specifics.
I guess the question becomes, that for people who think they personally know what is ‘true for everyone’, can they avoid becoming intolerant and bigoted? This goes along the lines of “If there is no real truth, then there is no reason for me to be tolerant” and “If there is no real truth, then we cannot place any limits on tolerance”, both of which are completely lame arguments. They are implying that without God, society will fall into total moral depravity and will become a world without justice, which is just a fantastic exaggeration.
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mulligan59
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mmortal03:
Wow, you wrote a ton. I will try to respond later tonight.
Wow, you wrote a ton. I will try to respond later tonight.
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drpmjhess
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Mulligan65, thank you for your note. I agree with you that there is a difference in perspective between people in academe and people in the business or technical worlds. That doesn’t mean, of course, that many academics don’t take a simplistic attitude toward religion, particularly if they have abandoned the faith in adolescence. The reasons I’ve encountered for disbelief in God range from the sincere and sophisticated (no doubt like the reasons mmortal03 might give) to the appallingly ignorant and unsophisticated. I can’t count the number of people I’ve met who reject a vision of God that is at best a caricature of the object of my own belief and prayer. Others reject God for the seemingly intractable problem of evil, not satisfied by any credible theodicy, and I understand this rejection.
I also agree with you that there is tremendous ignorance of Catholic doctrine, a lacuna I believe should be much better addressed from the pulpit than usually it is (we have a great Dominican preacher at our parish, who writes on science and religion and who has given some excellent sermons on evolution and its support for Catholic faith!). I also agree with you about cavalier attitudes toward sin, and I would add lax church participation as a serious concern.
I do not agree with you about “a sense of apostasy regarding the value of other religions.” The more one learns about other faiths the more one comes to respect both the universality of God’s revelation to human beings, and the particularity of God’s revelation in Christ. I have spent the last twenty years participating in international and interfaith conferences, and I never cease to marvel at the sincerity with which Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and Muslims can engage each other in fruitful dialogue. No less a devout Catholic than Thomas Merton was deeply and spiritually engaged in Buddhist Christian dialogue.
The point of greatest concern for me in your position is that of biblical literalism, which has never been our Catholic way. You say, “Well if the Bible is wrong here, well how can I believe any of it?” What do you mean by “wrong”? Why does a passage that cannot be read literally have to be “wrong” in your view? Isn’t that a bit unilateral of you to demand literalness, when Catholic theologians in the Middle Ages were careful to distinguish between literal, allegorical, topological and analogical meanings? Luke and Matthew contradict each other in their genealogies of Jesus, but rather than saying that one or both is wrong, theologians ask what literary purpose these two evangelists had in mind in elaborating genealogies in the first place.
Please let me know your thoughts on these questions.
Prayerfully yours,.
Petrus
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SpiritMeadow
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I guess I can’t get passed how someone who is “firmly against the idea of evolution” can be so when they then admit immediately that they know virtually nothing about it. ???
You are simply confused about what the bible is. Evolution poses no threat to the bible in any way, as JPII and Benedict have said repeatedly. The bible is not science period. Your problem is not with evolution which yuou admittedly know nothing about. Rather you are confused with what the bible is. Your beliefs apparently are straight out of Baptist fundamentalism. Get rid of your incorrect notions about the bible and you won’t need to attack science. You set yourself against 150+years of work by several million professionals, and claim they are wrong? That would be my first clue that something was amiss with what I believed.
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mulligan59
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Spirit Meadow,
I don’t know nothing, did I say nothing? But I am no scientist. I think I was trying to explain the problem evolution poses to the relativly unsophisticated (guilty) in terms of belief. And I also qualified it as the in the “smallest of nutshells”, “if the Bible is wrong…how can I believe any of it”? If I can, later at home tonight I’ll try to explain this better. The Doctor actually asked to know.
JPII writings are fraught with ambiguity and BenXVI is about to throw out Limbo. See Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio. But we are not allowed to discuss that here.
But in the meantime, FYI, the Bible is something isn’t it? Divine Revelation, the un-erring word of God.
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drpmjhess
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Mulligan65,
(1) Limbo is a concept that may have outlived its theological usefulness. No one seriously believes the horrific idea that unbaptized babies spend eternity separated from their parents in a state of perfect natural – but never supernatural – happiness!
(2) Our interpretation of the Bible is not inerrant, and interpretation is what every reading of the Bible is.
Petrus
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jcrichton
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Hi!
…interesting conclusion… as a child I though that I should hate Jews… there was a logical reason: I was 5 or 6 and I was learning about Christ’s Crucifixion… I continued to learn… though I have very little personal knowledge of the Jewish people, I do not hate or belittle or begrudge them since I learned, also as a child, that they were created by Yahweh God and that He does not hate them… they are simply lost children who reject His Way.
You, as a self-professed atheist, are in a similar path, why do you suppose Catholics will automatically hate you because you’ve dicided to go on it alone, no God, no Salvation, just your own m mortality?
Maran atha!
Angel
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jcrichton
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Hi!
…so you are saying that those pulling the trigers and killing other kids in their schools are Catholics bent on destroying the world because the Church’s religious morality was forced down their throats? …would that be ditto for the people who purposefully contaminated the blood bank with AIDS in the mid eighties?..
Do you also propose that wars are a product of Christian religion?
Maran atha!
Angel
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drpmjhess
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mmortal, thank you for your thoughtful post. A ciouple of relfections:
(1) You are right that intolerance comes from indoctrination. Such phrases as “no salvation outside the Catholic Church,” “Jesus is personal lord and savior,” “Mohammed is his only prophet” – these things are the stuff out of which intolerance is born. You know you’re on the Religious Right when God hates all the same people you do!
(2) However, I have no problem bringin my boys up in the Catholic faith, having htem baptized, go to confession and communion, etc. I don’t agree that it is irresponsible not to bring children up in a faith rather than in no faith until they are of an age toi deice for themselves. The key is to teach critical thinking. My twelve year old has been asking tough questions since he was five: how do we know God actually exists? What are there contradictions in the Bible? How do we know whether Christianity or Islam (or either) is the one true religion? Why should we take Genesis seriously since it ignores the dinosaurs? I have welcomed and encouraged his questioning,a nd I daresay his Cathiolicism is the stornger for it.
(3) I work with a lot of atheists, some of whom are far more compassionate and jsut plain nicer people even than some priests I know! You are right that atheism gets a bad rap for morality in the popular view.
(4) It’s curious to me that books on atheism are in four digits on Amazon.com’s sales rank, wheras my own book on Catholicms and Science ranks 811,123 (admittedly, its only in hardabck at $65.00). People are curious about God, atheism, and related subjects.
Petrus
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buffalo
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So what exactly do you tell them about “No Salvation Outside the Church”?
Do you agree with the following statement?
If you find yourself in heaven it will have been through the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which Jesus founded precisely for that reason.
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drpmjhess
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drpmjhess
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No, I don’t teach my children or my students “nulla salus extra ecclesiam” – there is no salvation outside the church. God reveals Godself to humans in different ways at different times in history. God has spoken through Judaism, Islam, and no doubt other monotheistic traditions. Although as Catholics we believe that God’s definitive self-revelation is through the Incarnate Word, I certainly don’t teach my children that people who have never had the opportunity to come to know Christ end up in hell.
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buffalo
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What do you teach them about people who are aware of the Catholic Church and still refuse to enter?
You did not state whether you agree with my statement.
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jcrichton
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Hi!
…you are in a Catholic site discussing “truth,” what “truth” do you suppose should be the final “truth?”
…ever watch talk shows?.. I can recall a time when Jerry Springer attempted to tackle the issue of racism… he seemed to be making sense: he had black and white children in the same waiting-room; these toddlers were ignorant of their respective parents’ racism and they simply played and communicated with each other while their parents engaged in their racial rants.
…then there was a time when I witnessed Ricky Lake (not sure the spelling) stump on a guy who happened to mention Jesus and Bible in his comment as a person participating from the audience…
…so which truth are you seeking? …who is intolerant or bigoted in the U. S. A.?
Maran atha!
Angel
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