Stephen168
New member
Yes, this isn’t the first time she has built this strawman. Seems dishonest, at this point.
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hmm
Guest
Jesus conquered death… so saying someone is “doomed no matter what” based on what fallible doctors think doesn’t work in the context of Christian theology. Just something to think about… oh and we humans try over and over again to play God ("not a case of killing one, but of saving one), but the CC recognizes that God is bigger than any problem we could ever imagine… which, again, is why it is never ever even remotely permissible to intentionally kill an unborn child. Jesus is the one who ultimately saves anyway - not humans (i.e. doctors)
plus, as a Christian, I do not fear death, especially if it’s at the expense of committing a mortal sin. So if I were pregnant and the baby would “definitely” or “most likely” kill me, I would pull a St. Gianna and carry the child to term - even if it costs me my life.
I suppose those are my fundamental reasons for being completely in line with what the CC teaches on abortions. And from your statement above, it’s obvious that you are in line with what your church teaches. But, if we were in the exact same situation: pregnant where, according to doctors, if we stay pregnant, we will die… the end result would be that my baby might live, while yours would definitely die, yet you would still be alive and I might not.
“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21
Which one sounds 100% pro-life to you?
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why_me
Guest
Church attendance in Ireland is way down. I would be surprised if Ireland stillWell, Rome isn’t a nation…
From statistics I’ve seen by the Georgetown University Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which researched a number of countries as far as weekly Mass attendance, there are a number of countries that have a higher Mass attendance than the USA, such as Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Italy, Peru, Colombia, Ireland, etc.
tops the usa.
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TheosisM
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zenit.org/article-27413?l=english
Attendance is down from the glory days in Ireland, as it is throughout Europe and the USA in most churches and religions, yet Ireland is still over the USA as far as Mass attendance.
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dianaiad
Guest
I have not ever stated that the Catholic position causes abortion…though now that you mention it, I think that in a round about way it may. The problem with any zero tolerance policy is that those who find themselves at the wrong end of it figure that since it doesn’t matter to the church why an abortion is sought, then it doesn’t matter to them, either. It’s the ‘might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb’ idea.
The problem I have isn’t a charge that the Catholic position causes abortions. It is that this position doesn’t PREVENT them…and that folks here are more interested in criticizing LDS doctrine regarding abortion than they are in actually fighting abortion.
Stephen168
New member
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dianaiad
Guest
The Vatican within it is.Well, Rome isn’t a nation…
However, Rome seems to be a rather different set of statistics than Italy as a whole…
From statistics I’ve seen by the Georgetown University Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which researched a number of countries as far as weekly Mass attendance, there are a number of countries that have a higher Mass attendance than the USA, such as Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Italy, Peru, Colombia, Ireland, etc.
Question…are you looking at what people say they do…or the actual attendance counts?
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dianaiad
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I’m not talking about end results that offer the slimmest possibility that the child might live. I’m talking about situations in which there is NO possibility that the child would live…but that it’s continued growth within the mother WILL encompass her death as well.
Things like, oh…ectopic pregnancies, for instance.
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dianaiad
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And are you not, by spending your time criticizing the LDS doctrine on abortion, when the LDS ABSOLUTELY has a better record in saving actual lives than Catholics do, proving my point, Stephen? Take your criticism and your harsh condemnation and aim it at the Catholic women who disobey their own church teachings in this matter. Go save a life or two.ParkerD:
Dianaiad:
You are like the jockey riding the last horse in the race, criticizing the winner for his riding style. The thing is, we are saving infant lives. You are not. Go. Save the life of a child. Get your own members to obey their own doctrines.
When you are as good at saving the lives of infants as we are, THEN come and make your self righteous declarations.
Stephen168
New member
No, I’m not judging the hearts and minds of individual Mormons. I am judging the stated teaching of the Mormon Church; which says it is OK to murder unborn babies. To judge the hearts and minds of individuals is very sinful of you. You don’t know what any individual Catholic on this board or anywhere is doing about the murder of unborn babies but you seem to love to assume they do nothing; you love to judge which you do not know, the hearts and minds of an individual. The Mormon Church teaches it is OK to murder a child in the womb because of the sins of its parents. And you can not defend this sinful teaching; all you can do to wish the worst about individual Catholics. By their fruits…
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TheosisM
Guest
I wouldn’t be surprised.The Vatican within it is.
However, Rome seems to be a rather different set of statistics than Italy as a whole…
Question…are you looking at what people say they do…or the actual attendance counts?
Well, seeing how the Catholic Church doesn’t take attendance at Mass, we’re looking at what people say they do, which is how statistics from CARA, Pew Forum, etc. work. All statistics on daily/weekly/monthly/yearly Mass attendance are by self report.
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TheosisM
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Again, I don’t see the Catholic position as not preventing abortions, or causing them. Instead, when people ignore the position against abortion, they cause abortions. The point of the Catholic position is to save lives. If Catholics are having abortions, they are ignoring that principle (or they somehow aren’t aware of it). When followed, the Catholic position prevents abortions obviously. This is clear everyday in Catholic hospitals around the world.
I won’t say what the posters here do in their off-forum lives, and whether they are fighting abortion, since how can I know what they do? In this thread, the purpose was to discuss (sure, I’ll say some want to criticize) the LDS church position on abortion, in comparison to the Catholic position.
Stephen168
New member
- A person gets in their car to drive to work and along the way a child jumps out between two parked cars and is hit and killed.
- A person gets in their car to drive to work and along the way decided to drive onto a school playground run over and kill a child they know has a rapist for a father.
The Catholic Church reaches only the first scenario is morally neutral.
When a Catholic points out that the second scenario is murder, the Mormon responds with “The Catholic Church teaches it is OK to kill children with cars, too.”
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zaffiroborant
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Catholic teaching does not require a woman and a baby to die in an ectopic pregnancy. You are distorting our teaching, still.
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dianaiad
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"By their fruits ye shall know them,’ Stephen. The facts are that Catholic women have abortions at between 3 to 5 (depending on the state and the study, but three times is the least, so I’m going with that) times the rate that Mormons do. It seems to me that one’s actions, especially in an area that has this level of consequence (the end of a human life) are rather indicative of one’s opinion on the subject.
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dianaiad
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Well, seeing how the Catholic Church doesn’t take attendance at Mass, we’re looking at what people say they do, which is how statistics from CARA, Pew Forum, etc. work. All statistics on daily/weekly/monthly/yearly Mass attendance are by self report.I wouldn’t be surprised.
Question…are you looking at what people say they do…or the actual attendance counts?
Catholics do not take attendance at Mass, directly. However, they do measure attendance in other ways. It turns out that people lie to pollsters. (what a shock THAT is…
). Turns out that the more ‘mainstream’ (or acceptable) the belief system is, the more people lie about going. The more off-track the belief system is, the fewer people lie about going.For instance, in the southern American states, pollsters have found that three out of four people who say that they attend Baptist services 'regularly" (at least twice a month) are lying through their teeth…but for the same question in that area, Mormons only lie a quarter of the time, and Catholics only lie half the time.
In Utah, however, the situation is reversed; the Baptist who says he attends church regularly THERE probably does–at least three out of four who say they do, do. Catholics are also more likely to be telling the truth about church attendance than they are in, say, Rhode Island.
As to Mormons–well, we DO take direct attendance in church. Mormons tend not to fib about church attendance to pollsters–unless they happen to live in Utah or Idaho.
In Europe, the lying about going to church is ubiqutious. Some respondents think that linging up on the sidewalk for a Saint’s progress once a decade is 'regular church attendance."
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dianaiad
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Yes…and the fact that the Mormon position results in far fewer abortions than does the Catholic position is an important part of that discussion…as inconvenient as that fact is to those who criticize the LDS doctrine about it.
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soren1
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Your first sentence is a mere counter-assertion. The end of your second sentence states the major premise of my argument. I am arguing by “reduction to the absurd,” that is to say, that if you follow through on the moral principles in Mormon teaching on abortion it leads to the preposterous conclusion that abortion should be legal across the board. If your premises lead to an absurdity, your premises are false. If your premises lead to an immoral conclusion, then your premises are immoral. The fact that you do not personally accept that conclusion has nothing to do with the fact that it is the conclusion that proceeds from your teachings. That is why I describe Mormon teaching as an “attempted” pro-life doctrine; Mormon leaders intend to condemn abortion, but the compromises in their teachings play directly into the hands of the pro-choice side. Note that my pro-choice interlocutor draws all of his arguments from Mormon teaching.
Here you are pounding on an open door. Respect for the body and role of the family in the ultimate purpose of human life is the cure. That cure can best be obtained though the recovery of the Catholic doctrine that man is an image of the Trinity. We are made to belong in a communion persons united by love. The human body serves this end, as it is designed to participate in interpersonal love. If we do so, our spiritual nature, which is also an image of the Trinity will take hold upon our lives. If God were not a Trinity, the family would be far less sacred.
But because you can’t finally separate the personal virtues that lead a person to reject abortion from their political implications, the political side matters a lot. Prior to Roe v. Wade, it was generally thought that no liberalization of abortion laws would be possible in America. Despite the growth of that movement in Europe and in Communist countries, the Catholic Church was thought to be too powerful for abortion to take hold in the U.S. That would have been true, were it not for the even greater power of judicial activism.
It should be noted that in those days the pro-choice side adopted a very modest apologetic: they didn’t espouse “abortion on demand” but assured the public that legalized abortion would be very rare indeed, and would only happen in cases of extreme need. It was the existence of such extreme cases that provided their core rationale. As of 1973, when the Mormon Church first framed its current abortion policy, the apparently modest exceptions in the LDS prohibition of abortion coincided with what was then the mainstay of the pro-choice platform. And look where that has got us. That abortion is indeed an all-or-nothing proposition is as evident from history as it is from reason.
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TheosisM
Guest
Well, seeing how the Catholic Church doesn’t take attendance at Mass, we’re looking at what people say they do, which is how statistics from CARA, Pew Forum, etc. work. All statistics on daily/weekly/monthly/yearly Mass attendance are by self report.
Catholics do not take attendance at Mass, directly. However, they do measure attendance in other ways. It turns out that people lie to pollsters. (what a shock THAT is…
As to Mormons–well, we DO take direct attendance in church. Mormons tend not to fib about church attendance to pollsters–unless they happen to live in Utah or Idaho.
All I am saying is that the Catholic Church doesn’t take attendance at Mass (or any of our other services), and that the statistics that we all cite, including the Pew Forum, are by self-report. If the statistics are wrong because of lying, then it’s best that no one cites them, including those that think they are advantageous to their group. You are right, people lie to pollsters, even when the survey is anonymous, however we aren’t going to throw away all polls because of that. And back to the original point, the statistics show that USA Catholics do not have the highest activity level, and that members in a number of other countries do. Sure, people may be lying, however all of these “religious landscape” surveys are based on self-report, and that’s what we all cite (obviously they are not conclusive, since surveys are only one measure to be used in a study). That’s all.
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dianaiad
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Wow, what a non-sequitur…and inflammatory as well.
And inaccurate.
A better one would be:
- A child has his dad’s gun, and it’s loaded. He slips out between two cars and shoots at the passing traffic. He is not aware that the gun he is holding is not a toy. He shoots the driver of one car, which goes out of control, hits and kills him. Both driver and child die.
- Same scenario; innocent child with dad’s loaded gun. He’s standing in the middle of traffic and is about to be hit by a car. However, before that car hits him. he raises his gun and aims at the driver. The driver has no choice; he either steps on the gas and hits the kid before he can pull the trigger, or he dies–there is no other option open; no swerving, no braking–no other option.
Neither option is "morally neutral,’ just unavoidable.
The Catholics will say that the second scenerio will send the driver to hell because it was a mortal sin, and the Mormons respond that since Catholics run over three times as many children than Mormons do, they should probably not criticize our method of avoiding it.
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