Human Life is Not Sacred

[Flavius_Aetius]

It seems thinking it over that human life is merely judged by convienence of individuals and society as a whole.

A few thoughts that got me down this line of thinking.

The assassin of Pope John Paul II; had he succeeded I suspect no one in all of Catholicism would forgive this man, but because he failed and the Pope himself forgave the man we all suddenly care about his humanity and salvation.

Children is the biggest example though. I don’t think there is a day gone by where the notion of population control doesn’t come in. People with large families are looked down upon as idiots who

1. don’t know how to use birth control
2. assumed to be stupid theist who are against birth control

But children aren’t a matter of convienience for just those kinds of people. When it comes down to it Money vs Having Children, money wins. This is not some attack it’s just truth that you cannot have children when you don’t have the money to support them. They’re a liability that you have to evaluate having, or have anyways and sink financially.

There is litterally nothing on this Earth that is free from corruption, even at the beginning of life you have Post-Partum depression, embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes, and an entire world of promiscutiy and disease.

No god in the sky, no saints on the earth…

 

[HerrZJA]

Well, it certainly seems that people judge human life in this way. Then again, people seem to naturally drift toward impiety, or secularism, or base instinct, and away from piety, faith, and reason.

The important part, at least for many people, is not how humans judge other humans (in fact, we were forbidden from doing so), but how God judges them.

 

[GloriousOrder]

I suppose, O.P., you must love of the famous quote: “I like your Christ, but not your Christians”? Perhaps J.P. II was shot and survived specifically to act as a beacon of mercy in our worthless and predominantly secular age. The whole world, influenced by modern “Enlightenment” skepticism, has become merciless because of atheism and individualism. We can say nothing against Christianity merely by the fact that it is not perfectly followed. Didn’t G.K. Chesterton say something like “Christianity has not been tested and found wanting; it has been tested and found too difficult to be practiced”. Nothing created by the modern world, in terms of philosophy and art, is all that profound or great.

When it comes down to it Money vs Having Children, money wins. This is not some attack it’s just truth that you cannot have children when you don’t have the money to support them. They’re a liability that you have to evaluate having, or have anyways and sink financially.

This is pretty basic utilitarianism and moderation. Our holy Church does not teach that we should go at it like bunnies just to have fifty children. When you cannot afford to raise a child, it is better that none should be conceived - lest all suffer. Prudence and temperance are extolled as great virtues by our holy Religion!

There is litterally nothing on this Earth that is free from corruption, even at the beginning of life you have Post-Partum depression, embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes, and an entire world of promiscutiy and disease.

Nothing is free from corruption because nothing is perfect. God decided to let things evolve in a general way, slowly changing and morphing over time. What does that have to do with… well, anything? He has a way, and that’s the way things go.

God in Heaven, and saints all around us… cheer up, you!

 

[Spencerian]

It seems thinking it over that human life is merely judged by convienence of individuals and society as a whole.

A few thoughts that got me down this line of thinking.

The assassin of Pope John Paul II; had he succeeded I suspect no one in all of Catholicism would forgive this man, but because he failed and the Pope himself forgave the man we all suddenly care about his humanity and salvation.

Children is the biggest example though. I don’t think there is a day gone by where the notion of population control doesn’t come in. People with large families are looked down upon as idiots who

1. don’t know how to use birth control
2. assumed to be stupid theist who are against birth control

But children aren’t a matter of convienience for just those kinds of people. When it comes down to it Money vs Having Children, money wins. This is not some attack it’s just truth that you cannot have children when you don’t have the money to support them. They’re a liability that you have to evaluate having, or have anyways and sink financially.

There is litterally nothing on this Earth that is free from corruption, even at the beginning of life you have Post-Partum depression, embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes, and an entire world of promiscutiy and disease.

No god in the sky, no saints on the earth…

Such darkness and pessimism in your post. As well, there are a few mistruths.

Earth, briefly, was a paradise. But yes, the free will of man changed it into what we have now. Even still, joy and hope and happiness is still to be found…

• When 33 miners, most Catholic, trapped a half-mile under the earth, are rescued…
• When a passenger jet loses both engines on takeoff but safely lands, miraculously, on the Hudson River, with no loss of life…

Of course human life is sacred. However, some people do not treat it as such. But many, many do. Otherwise, there would not be nearly as many helps in the world: Charitable organizations (of which Catholic-aligned charities are the largest of these groups in the world), rescue groups–even the people in your own hometown.

Perhaps this article from Catholic Update can shed more light on the meaning of suffering from a Catholic perspective.

I do not know what your faith background is. I do know, however, that the only thing worse than suffering is to lament about it but do nothing yourself to remove a bit of it from this earth. Don’t just witness suffering–act to stop it. Is that a monumental task?

Sure. But no less monumental than those who endure the pain until they are rescued from it.

Have you ever thought that those who persist in life despite their cancer, despite their infirmities or social status or misfortune–that fact that they can still say, “I matter, and I live”? **That **,my friend, ***is ***the miracle: the power of hope.

 

[105lynne]

Such darkness and pessimism in your post. As well, there are a few mistruths.

Earth, briefly, was a paradise. But yes, the free will of man changed it into what we have now. Even still, joy and hope and happiness is still to be found…

• When 33 miners, most Catholic, trapped a half-mile under the earth, are rescued…
• When a passenger jet loses both engines on takeoff but safely lands, miraculously, on the Hudson River, with no loss of life…

Of course human life is sacred. However, some people do not treat it as such. But many, many do. Otherwise, there would not be nearly as many helps in the world: Charitable organizations (of which Catholic-aligned charities are the largest of these groups in the world), rescue groups–even the people in your own hometown.

Perhaps this article from Catholic Update can shed more light on the meaning of suffering from a Catholic perspective.

I do not know what your faith background is. I do know, however, that the only thing worse than suffering is to lament about it but do nothing yourself to remove a bit of it from this earth. Don’t just witness suffering–act to stop it. Is that a monumental task?

Sure. But no less monumental than those who endure the pain until they are rescued from it.

Have you ever thought that those who persist in life despite their cancer, despite their infirmities or social status or misfortune–that fact that they can still say, “I matter, and I live”? **That **,my friend, ***is ***the miracle: the power of hope.

Nice answer!!

 

[hansgeorg]

When it comes down to it Money vs Having Children, money wins. This is not some attack it’s just truth that you cannot have children when you don’t have the money to support them. They’re a liability that you have to evaluate having, or have anyways and sink financially.

1. Sinking financially is a valid option.
2. Valorising one’s children by letting them work at home (shepherds, knitting, child-care while mother is busy) is an option. Especially in societies where there is no school obligation.
3. Waiting till one has the money is the stupidity that lands couple after couple in the pickle of discovering at her age 40 that this is not a very fertile period for a first child.

There is litterally nothing on this Earth that is free from corruption, even at the beginning of life you have Post-Partum depression, embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes, and an entire world of promiscutiy and disease.

No god in the sky, no saints on the earth…

Sorry, but there is St Gianna Molla. She was a gynecologist, she was told she could only survive a cancer or similar if it was scraped in such a way as would risk her child’s life, her daughter was born and she died in that disease.

 

[hansgeorg]

• When 33 miners, most Catholic, trapped a half-mile under the earth, are rescued…
• When a passenger jet loses both engines on takeoff but safely lands, miraculously, on the Hudson River, with no loss of life…

• When I get a free coffee in the morning from a frail old lady (but I am a bit angry at the guy who was younger and told me go to her, just because he thought I was in a hurry and he was not yet awake),
• When I am treated well by a few other homeless and feel I am lossing something socially (well, my obvious company is students, not homeless, and I tried to keep it like that even after leaving home, and no, it was not an Academic failure that landed me off university)
• You make your own examples. Things that never hit the news but which are right and which are bright.

 

[Murcury]

I’ll say human life is sacred but not offer you religious reasons. Rather, I offer the challenge, do you know of any species are great as ours?

 

[Flavius_Aetius]

Well, it certainly seems that people judge human life in this way. Then again, people seem to naturally drift toward impiety, or secularism, or base instinct, and away from piety, faith, and reason.

The important part, at least for many people, is not how humans judge other humans (in fact, we were forbidden from doing so), but how God judges them.

But it seems the only judgement that matters is human judgement since God seems to have taken a hands off approach to dealing with us for the past thousands of years. And as you mentioned despite our own claims of Western enlightenment it’s digusting how the widely expressed ideal includes murdering human life for conveinence.

Nothing is free from corruption because nothing is perfect. God decided to let things evolve in a general way, slowly changing and morphing over time. What does that have to do with… well, anything? He has a way, and that’s the way things go.

Because when you read about say the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah you expect that God to continually remind us of his destructive but pure justice, not do it a collection of times thousands of years ago and then suddenly never take that route again. As of now with so much evil so widespread around the world you’d expect God would take direct action like he did in the Old Testament. But instead we’ve been left with only the blind faith that God is truly existing and with us.

I’ll say human life is sacred but not offer you religious reasons. Rather, I offer the challenge, do you know of any species are great as ours?

No, but I also don’t know of any species that so destructively terraforms their enviroment. Honestly the fact that we are the only consious life isn’t that large of a draw to me. After tens of thousands of years we still behave the same way a dog would. Despite hard evidence showing the genetic bonding at the time of conception the majority of humanity still finds it acceptable to terminate that life, just like how a mother dog would kill her puppies if they are unwanted for whatever reason.

However the most soul destructive evidence probably comes from the Catholic Church itself. With senarios where either the child itself is a threat to the mother’s life or when one of the reproductive organs require removal that would result in the death of a fertilized human embryo. After all the word play at the end of the day it is still the Catholic Church accepting the fact that a already living human mother is more valuable than a human embryo that is placed in a position where it will not be able to develop to full terms before the mother’s death.

And that line of thinking feels no different than a soldier coldly leaving behind a civilian because they got caught in a trap that left them a liability to their own safety.

 

[GEddie]

1. Sinking financially is a valid option.

Even if that will result in grievous suffering, or death, for some or all of the existing kids? Not every society has a “safety net.”

1. Waiting till one has the money is the stupidity that lands couple after couple in the pickle of discovering at her age 40 that this is not a very fertile period for a first child.
   .

And that, too, is a “valid” outcome. Not every set of genes MUST be propagated.

Human beings make mistakes, severe ones. Some result in loss of life; some allow the persons to live on, but not the genes. It’s a part of human life.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Because when you read about say the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah you expect that God to continually remind us of his destructive but pure justice, not do it a collection of times thousands of years ago and then suddenly never take that route again. As of now with so much evil so widespread around the world you’d expect God would take direct action like he did in the Old Testament. But instead we’ve been left with only the blind faith that God is truly existing and with us.

Would you rather God meddle in human affairs as the pagan gods of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Norse did?

If I am to understand correctly, it’s common knowledge that the Old Testament possesses a more Jewish image of God. The Christian God elaborates more on that. For all I know, He was never much an interventionist to begin with.

The tricky thing about free will is that no matter how much any of us generalize humanity, no matter how much we analyze every context a decision is in, you can never really predict the choices people make. Some people choose good, others evil. Yet, you cannot blame free will as the source of evil because that evil once had to be chosen between it and good.

There would be no point to free will if God took the course of action you just dictated.

 

[RosaryFan]

It seems thinking it over that human life is merely judged by convienence of individuals and society as a whole.

A few thoughts that got me down this line of thinking.

The assassin of Pope John Paul II; had he succeeded I suspect no one in all of Catholicism would forgive this man, but because he failed and the Pope himself forgave the man we all suddenly care about his humanity and salvation.

Children is the biggest example though. I don’t think there is a day gone by where the notion of population control doesn’t come in. People with large families are looked down upon as idiots who

1. don’t know how to use birth control
2. assumed to be stupid theist who are against birth control

But children aren’t a matter of convienience for just those kinds of people. When it comes down to it Money vs Having Children, money wins. This is not some attack it’s just truth that you cannot have children when you don’t have the money to support them. They’re a liability that you have to evaluate having, or have anyways and sink financially.

There is litterally nothing on this Earth that is free from corruption, even at the beginning of life you have Post-Partum depression, embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes, and an entire world of promiscutiy and disease.

No god in the sky, no saints on the earth…

There are a few of us left who don’t think this way. I admire (and even envy) people with big families. I’d take more children over money any day.

 

[Flavius_Aetius]

Would you rather God meddle in human affairs as the pagan gods of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Norse did?

At least then there would be something to base your faith on. As of now all the Catholic faith falls upon scriptures written generations after the apostles, collected centuries after that and which you have to just have faith in that they are divinely inspired.

And exactly what was the state of free will in the Jewish tribes then? Should God have just left them in Egypt when they were enslaved? Should Sodom and Gorromoth been allowed to remain standing as a beacon of hedonism, homosexuality, and all other perversion?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

At least then there would be something to base your faith on. As of now all the Catholic faith falls upon scriptures written generations after the apostles, collected centuries after that and which you have to just have faith in that they are divinely inspired.

You can say the same thing about the history of any country like China, Greece, Rome, Japan, Egypt, even my country struggles to piece together what little traces we have left of our pre-colonial past. That doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed a 100% picture.

And yet, the findings and conclusions of historians make their way to the textbooks of our children and are taught as fact.

Besides, wouldn’t you think that Satan is also restrained in such a manner? He can’t be summoning fiend armies rising from the ground or duping people into possessing them left and right. People would think he existed and if he existed, so would God.

You know you don’t seem to realize that what you’re asking sounds like something out of fantasy where the gods of good fight the gods of evil. However, you don’t seem to realize that such a scenario makes it easy for us to look like nothing more than mere playthings of the gods.

Our Almighty Father doesn’t seem to strike me as that type of deity.

And exactly what was the state of free will in the Jewish tribes then? Should God have just left them in Egypt when they were enslaved? Should Sodom and Gorromoth been allowed to remain standing as a beacon of hedonism, homosexuality, and all other perversion?

You miss the point. You forget that you’re not a Jew. You’re a Christian. Therefore, you shouldn’t exactly have the same understanding of God as they do. I for one am not for taking the Old Testament as literally as I do the New.

Evil exists because of people choosing it and the only punishment is that of natural consequence. It need not necessarily come in the form of something unnatural and unrelated like an earthquake or a rain of fire and brimstone.

 

[RosaryFan]

At least then there would be something to base your faith on. As of now all the Catholic faith falls upon scriptures written generations after the apostles, collected centuries after that and which you have to just have faith in that they are divinely inspired.

What about the Acts of the Apostles? And Revelation was written by John.

 

[Flavius_Aetius]

I suppose the bottom line is what is there to prove that God is present in life and thus making human life worth anything?

The only that seems assured is godless human laws that can easily make human life worthless if they deem it.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I suppose the bottom line is what is there to prove that God is present in life and thus making human life worth anything?

Good Lord, even I’m not this cynical. True the human race as a whole is a big joke. That doesn’t mean there are no people out there who are an exception to the rule and show that you can be different. You can rise above the rest, etc, etc.

Again, back to human choice. As much as it is unpredictable to determine if one would choose evil, so can the same thing apply for good.

 

[Holly3278]

First of all, God does exist. He may not exist “in the sky” with the exception of His Holy Spirit but He does exist. Second of all, human life is sacred. That is why it is so important to be pro-life. God Himself named Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church here on earth. As such, the Catholic Church is God’s Church and God’s religion. The Catholic Church has never failed and never will fail. It declares doctrine and dogma on faith and morals infallibly. She is our infallible guide to life on this earth and she has declared that God does exist and that human life is sacred. And for me, that settles the issue. I know it probably doesn’t for you and I can understand that view. I will pray for you.

 

[Lady_Marchmain]

…embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes…

What are you referring to by your above statement?

I have been involved in Catholic pro-life for decades and have never once heard anything, from Catholics or others, about the Church in any way condoning or allowing the killing of an embryo.

But perhaps your obtuse phrase “allows to die” refers to some natural and entirely moral process?

It’s not clear whether you are making a pretty darn serious accusation, or simply referring to something you assume we know about.

I have no clue whether you’re even in the realm of abortion, IVF, NFP, medical or natural…etc. So again, please specifically explain in a less esoteric way what you mean by your statement:

“…embryos that the Catholic Church allows to die in favor of their mothers through loopholes…”

Thank you. L.M.

 

[Flavius_Aetius]

What are you referring to by your above statement?

In 1961, Gianna was once again expecting. During the second month, Gianna developed a fibroma on her uterus. After examination, the doctors gave her three choices: an abortion, a complete hysterectomy, or removal of only the fibroma. Though the Catholic Church forbids all direct abortion even when the woman’s life is in danger, Catholic teaching would have allowed her to undergo a hysterectomy, which would have resulted in her unborn child’s death as an unintended consequence.

The bold part is what I mean, while this stance is lightyears more acceptable than what the Secular world deems the value of human life it is still at the end of the day saying that backed into a corner where you kill a already born mother or a child still incapable of living outside the womb that the already born woman is the more valued life.