In which Catholics makes me ill

[ribozyme]

This may be a utopian dream for you, but to me it is a late night “B” movie nightmare. Not to mention, as I stated earlier, just because one may be genetically engineered to perfection, doesn’t mean that we can predict behavior for certain. It’s the old argument once again. Also, your solution doesn’t take into account the accidents that we face in life that can alter our state of being, either phsyically or mentally.

I find that an insult to movies such as Gattaca.

I think that this dream of a utopian society where everyone is geneticaly engineered to be equal, would face the same end as the marxist movement as it became evident that the idealists couldn’t socially engineer society for the same end.

So, do you need a tiered society where only a few are Alphas and the vast majority are Epsilon minuses? So what is wrong with the notion of human equality?

Tell me how the notion of a genetically engineered society is worse than the genetic elitism advocated in The Bell Curve?

 

[yugnok]

“If humans are not equal… there is only one way that we can resolve this problem: germline genetic engineering of all human fetuses in a socialist state. Such a program has to be universally available to all parents. If humans are not equal, I do not see any other way to rectify this inequality. Genetic engineering might fulfill the egalitarian dream.”

When Catholics speak of the equality, they are usually referring to an equality with regards to dignity. All human persons are creatures made in the image and likeness of God–endowed with freedom, a capacity for love, and an intellect. Therefore, they have invaluable worth–not because they are the best looking, most intelligent, or most athletic. Their personhood gives them dignity.

You seem to be thinking of equality in terms of attributes, .e.g how smart someone is, how well they perform, how beautiful they are. I don’t understand why that is such a problem for you. If you seriously would find yourself thinking less of someone because they aren’t as clever or athletic than you, I would say thats a serious problem–not a problem with the natural order of things but a problem with your outlook and understanding of what gives a person their dignity.

Everyone has their own gifts; but it is their uniqueness as a person that makes them equal in dignity. But to say that if they aren’t equal in every way we should start an aggressive eugenics program to make everyone equal so that everyone is the best of everything … well that sounds like a nightmare to me. I wouldn’t want to live in such a world. Diversity is a good and beautiful thing.

I really want to challenge you to see the value in other people aside from all of their accidental attributes. Jesus was God (at least thats what I believe) and he went around associating with people who were marginalized and treated as less than animals; being divine himself, he saw their value and dignity, loving them more than any other person could.

Some reading material you might be interested in: Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), Love and Responsibility and Deus Charitas Est by Pope Benedict. That latter can be found on the internet and the second part speaks about some of your concerns about social justice. You might find some insights in them. If you aren’t ready to dive into Theology, you may want to look through Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant. Some of his insights were used by Wojtyla.

 

[jman507]

I find that an insult to movies such as Gattaca.

So, do you need a tiered society where only a few are Alphas and the vast majority are Epsilon minuses? So what is wrong with the notion of human equality?

Tell me how the notion of a genetically engineered society is worse than the genetic elitism advocated in The Bell Curve?

What exactly do you mean by equality?

As far as why would a genetically engineered society is worse than the genetic elitism advocated in the bell curve, what are some of the benefits of sexual reproduction vs. asexual reproduction? I guess I would wonder how practical it would be to genetically engineer a whole society? Even if you could, not everyone would go along with it. Also if you could, some would probably be more than happy to try to use it in their favor. One more thing, how do you know what standard you are trying to engineer towards, and unintended effects?

So I guess to answer your question, once you decide what could be better than the elitism by the bell curve, naturally by engineering you could get closer to that standard, but I think it’d be nearly impossible to apply, not only because of all the variables you’d be dealing with genetically, you wouldn’t know how all the environmental variable could impact it. Possibly if your omniscient, you could do it.

Then there is always the problem that all things that we could make a bell curve to represent, genetics don’t apply to them all, there are a lot of things that are impacted by environmental factors. I don’t think it’d be too wise, to make all the environmental factors the same.

I guess in my opinion I’m glad you are an elite when it comes to biochemistry, if we do have any breakthroughs in biochemistry, it will be due to elites like you.

 

[Jennifer123]

When Catholics speak of the equality, they are usually referring to an equality with regards to dignity. All human persons are creatures made in the image and likeness of God–endowed with freedom, a capacity for love, and an intellect. Therefore, they have invaluable worth–not because they are the best looking, most intelligent, or most athletic. Their personhood gives them dignity.

Thank you - and this is why socialism/marxism/communism is such a threat to humanity because it seeks to destroy this uniqueness and therefore strips us of our dignity.

On a practical level, capitalist societies in which people are free to use their gifts to become wealthy are also free to use their gifts to be generous. We are the most generous nation on Earth, and private people and industries do more in the way of charitable giving than any government entity or socialist society could ever do.

 

[darc]

I think there is danger in placing hope that a man-made political system will right the wrongs of the world. This can’t be achieved by man, only by God.

 

[AngelicDoctor]

I agree, the citation that you began this thread with is a just a strawman set up so that an atheist can beat on it and sink deeper into disillusionment with the Catholic Church. That racist blurb that you quoted is neither representative of any true practicing Catholics that I know of… nor is it representative of anything you can find in Church teaching or Church social doctrine (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium of Catholic Social Teachings).

 

[mlchance]

That racist blurb that you quoted is neither representative of any true practicing Catholics that I know of…

There’s also the subtle irony of the OP quoting Charles Darwin in his signature at the same time he is rightly condemning racism. Darwin taught that people, such as Black Africans, were inherently inferior to the “superior” white people of Europe, and that eventually, via the process of survival of the fittest, the “inferior” races would become extinct.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Island_Oak]

To the OP:

Is English your first language or are you just a poor typist? You have so many errors of syntax/grammar/spelling that I’m wondering if there might also be some gaps in understanding due to subtleties in the language you may not fully appreciate.

If nothing else, your enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity at age 17, while admirable, would benefit from some perspective and sophistication by way of a greater breadth of study and more critical consideration of the sources upon which you are basing your rather broad-brush conclusions.

 

[ribozyme]

To the OP:

Is English your first language or are you just a poor typist? You have so many errors of syntax/grammar/spelling that I’m wondering if there might also be some gaps in understanding due to subtleties in the language you may not fully appreciate.

If nothing else, your enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity at age 17, while admirable, would benefit from some perspective and sophistication by way of a greater breadth of study and more critical consideration of the sources upon which you are basing your rather broad-brush conclusions.

I type rather quickly and I do not proofread my own posts. Sorry about that…

As I noted, the aforementioned quotes were derived from a discussion on the American Renaissance website. You are correct when you note that the fanatics on the American Renaissance website do not represent the opinions of the Church. I suggest you visit the wikipedia link. It would not surprise me if you are disgusted after learning about American Renaissance.

 

[hoosiertoo]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

 

[hoosiertoo]

Clowns of reason

Part Deux

Part the third

 

[Em_in_FL]

Originally Posted by yugnok
When Catholics speak of the equality, they are usually referring to an equality with regards to dignity. All human persons are creatures made in the image and likeness of God–endowed with freedom, a capacity for love, and an intellect. Therefore, they have invaluable worth–not because they are the best looking, most intelligent, or most athletic. Their personhood gives them dignity.

Thank you - and this is why socialism/marxism/communism is such a threat to humanity because it seeks to destroy this uniqueness and therefore strips us of our dignity.

On a practical level, capitalist societies in which people are free to use their gifts to become wealthy are also free to use their gifts to be generous. We are the most generous nation on Earth, and private people and industries do more in the way of charitable giving than any government entity or socialist society could ever do.

Two beautiful posts…

I am also curious… to the OP… what do you mean by “equality”???

 

[vern_humphrey]

Two beautiful posts…

I am also curious… to the OP… what do you mean by “equality”???

Zbignew Brzinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, said, “Communism is the greatest disaster ever to overtake the Human Race.”

He was demonstrably and objectively right – the huge numbers of people killed by Communist governments proves that. The reason is quite simple – Communism (and ultimately Socialism as well) demands absolute unfettered centralized power.

And Lord Acton was right, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”