C
Contarini
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The earth belongs to God. That I think is the basic theological difference between us. You speak as if the earth were evil or some sort of competitor with God. That’s the heresy of Gnosticism.
Edwin
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Edwin
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Marfran
Guest
Right on, brother!!!
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Bill_Cherry
Guest
Perhaps TEPO is confusing ‘earth’ with ‘world’. One meaning the Lord’s creation,…the other meaning the secular ‘system’. (pardon me if I am putting words in your mouth, TEPO)
BTW is TEPO an acronym?
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TEPO
Guest
I dont think that! I cherish Gods creation! It seems like you want to discredit me for some reason. My job is to shed light, not to master. Welcome to terrapin! (I love that song)
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TEPO
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I find your tone offensive. I’m only adhearing to the Bishops call; creating civil dialogue. I’m exposing things… SOMEONE has to do it…
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Bill_Cherry
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TEPO
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I have always made it clear that even though I dont believe in MMCC, that smog and pollution should be reduced and prevented. I just disagree with the idea of causing panic. which in some cases, (which others deny) has caused people to fall from the faith. Or which may cause more abortions. Or which may unfairly shape politics. I want to address these issues, since they havent been stressed that much. I want to protect the integrity of the Church. I want to point out any possible paths of sin, so people dont go that way. Maybe by mentioning them I can help reduce their effects in this state of panic. Maybe the quality of life in the future will be better if we dont pull everything out from underneith the rich and middle class Americans so violently. I dont know answers, I’m just showing scenarios.
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TEPO
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Sure is. I was curious on that picture you have on the bottom of your posts. Where was that picture taken?
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Bill_Cherry
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From a FB friends blog ( a little out of context but relevant I think)
scottdodge.blogspot.com/
But, we have a faith. A faith which trusts what the Holy Father is presenting to us. Faith in his infallibility and in the Magisterium of the Church. But, I do not believe it because the Catholic church tells me to. The Catholic church teaches it because it is correct. If that makes me naive then I will merely have to go with Pascals wager on this one.
I believe humans are having an effect on the environment; however significant or insignificant it may be. I believe we have a moral duty to share this information with those who do not know this. I believe we all share some responsibility in doing something about it.
I believe it is wrong to go about saying that something doesn’t exist for which there is insurmountable evidence. I also believe that the only real ‘suffering’ that may derive from acting on MMCC is big business.
That is what I believe.
and coffee, too. I believe I will have some more coffee before I mow my lawn.
scottdodge.blogspot.com/
Facts are facts. Whether one chooses to believe in something or not does not change the reality of it’s existence. And conversely, just because someone believes something it does not make it so.
But, we have a faith. A faith which trusts what the Holy Father is presenting to us. Faith in his infallibility and in the Magisterium of the Church. But, I do not believe it because the Catholic church tells me to. The Catholic church teaches it because it is correct. If that makes me naive then I will merely have to go with Pascals wager on this one.
I believe humans are having an effect on the environment; however significant or insignificant it may be. I believe we have a moral duty to share this information with those who do not know this. I believe we all share some responsibility in doing something about it.
I believe it is wrong to go about saying that something doesn’t exist for which there is insurmountable evidence. I also believe that the only real ‘suffering’ that may derive from acting on MMCC is big business.
That is what I believe.
and coffee, too. I believe I will have some more coffee before I mow my lawn.
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Bill_Cherry
Guest
I think it was at a prolife rally/protest in Rome. But, honestly, I do not remember. I have had the photo in my computer for so long…I hope I am not violating any copyright laws…I like it for a number of reasons. It shows ‘the world’ fighting against the Church, to me. Also, at the risk of sounding sanctimonious (?) I can see the hypocrisy from both the liberal and conservative ends of the political spectrum. Both of which hate us.(a servant is no better than his master; if they hate me they will hate you, too)
May I ask what the acronym is for? You can pm me if you prefer…
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TEPO
Guest
I think we’re headed for the same waterfall but traveling on two different paths! We both know the way to where we’re going because we can hear the water, even though we’re traveling on seperate trails. We all know we need to care for environment thats a given. The difference is your path sees more of a rush to make it on time. While my path tells me to be more cautious. Fact or not, we are headed to the same place. just different paths.
-If that makes any sense?-
So if it is your duty to share information on the urgency, it is my duty to warn people to be cautious… Not ignorant, but cautious…
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html
“development requires a transcendent vision of the person, it needs God: without him, development is either denied, or entrusted exclusively to man, who falls into the trap of thinking he can bring about his own salvation, and ends up promoting a dehumanized form of development”
“Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space. Enclosed within history, it runs the risk of being reduced to the mere accumulation of wealth; humanity thus loses the courage to be at the service of higher goods, at the service of the great and disinterested initiatives called forth by universal charity.”
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Bill_Cherry
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It makes perfect sense.
Caution can be a good thing. It is easy to fall into the traps when one is not paying attention. I do think that being overly cautious could lead us into missing opportunity and even setbacks. I have faith in human ingenuity. Sometimes it frightens me. But, even though we are all born into original sin, that doesn’t necessarily mean we are born evil. ( Keeping in mind that there ARE evil people out there, mind you.) I guess this is where the true question of ethics comes in. Are there enough checks and balances to keep the malevolents out of the picture? They come from both sides. It is up to the Believers in the Proper Stewardship of God’s Creation to present the issues as they really are. And when dealing with a secular world, ‘religiosity’ can sometimes set up walls that may not otherwise be there. (witness the abortion debate)
It would be almost impossible to be ignorant of MMCC/AGW with all the exposure it receives. I suppose the relevent task at hand is to “be the example”, and pursue this as closely to our understanding of Godly principles as we can. I suppose this is one reason why we are encouraged to pray for our leaders.
Y’know. I really like B16.
And we do need to remember that salvation is a gift from God. It is very easy to inadvertently place oneself on a pedastal/soapbox when it comes to being passionate about issues. I am just as guilty as anyone sometimes. But, I try to remain objective and optimistic, for what that is worth.Anyway, I don’t know where to go with this from here…
Television Evangelists People Organization?
Tomorrow Envelopes Primal Orientation?
Tribal Elephants Peeling Oranges?
Thumping Evil Persons Overtime?
C’mon,man! What does TEPO stand for?
I just gotta know, man!
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TEPO
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I’m just a homeless 32year old with way too much time on my hands. I screwed up and lost everything except my faith in the Catholic Church. I’m seperated from my kids and everything. God is all I have left… (except for library internet)Television Evangelists People Organization?
Tomorrow Envelopes Primal Orientation?
Tribal Elephants Peeling Oranges?
Thumping Evil Persons Overtime?
C’mon,man! What does TEPO stand for?
I just gotta know, man!
TEPO are the initials of my first and last name!
Sorry if I let you down.
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Bill_Cherry
Guest
Oh, that is brave of you to admit. i was homeless before also.I’m just a homeless 32year old with way too much time on my hands. I screwed up and lost everything except my faith in the Catholic Church. I’m seperated from my kids and everything. God is all I have left… (except for library internet)
TEPO are the initials of my first and last name!
Sorry if I let you down.
C
Contarini
Guest
I’m sorry if I have given that impression. I am describing your posts as I understand them, and of course I am very fallible.
You have several times used the word “earth” in a sense that caused me to think that you were identifying it with “world” as the word is often used in Scripture (as in “love not the world”). I have heard a Pentecostal preacher make exactly this argument against environmentalism, and I thought that perhaps that was the direction you were going.
If that is not what you mean, then I find some of your recent posts rather puzzling.
Edwin
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Contarini
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I’m sorry for that. I often speak too harshly in my attempt to deal with what I see as logical problems with someone’s argument.
But do you see the point of what I’m saying, however badly I said it? Can you really eliminate all the conditions that might lead someone to choose abortion? Given that you clearly can’t, don’t you think that you are being rather oddly selective in your argument that we should promote economic prosperity by fostering free enterprise? Someone else might (and many have) argued for exactly the same reasons that we should support liberal (what some would call “socialist”) public policies as a way of ending abortion. Given the many reasons someone can make this horrible choice, and given the huge disagreements on how we might create more favorable social conditions, it seems to me that in the end we should just try to change society in ways we believe to be good and trust that this will create an atmosphere unfavorable to abortion. I have not noticed anyone saying “I really don’t think this social policy is good in itself, but we should support it because it will cause fewer abortions.” That was my point in accusing you of inconsistency–you are picking something you believe in anyway (free enterprise creating wealth) and using the argument that it will cause fewer abortions as reinforcement. Those of us who think that protecting God’s nonhuman creation is important in and of itself will continue to advocate this, not as something that competes with the prolife cause but as part of a unified concern for *all *of God’s creation, human, nonhuman, born and unborn.
Edwin
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TEPO
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No.
No. If free enterprise limits abortion that fact should be accounted for and weighed out in any decision making process. It’s a Christian responsibility. We’re the salt, and God **counts on us **to keep his laws, not the pagans.
Typical ends justify the means mentality. This is scary!
Not necessarily. I choose a system which rejects paternalism in govornment. Especially when the paternal force promotes abortion, and possibly other known evils.
I’d like to re-air a few quotes from an earlier post…
By Pope Benedict:
vatican.va/holy_father/be…ritate_en.html
“Development requires a transcendent vision of the person, it needs God: without him, development is either denied, or entrusted exclusively to man, who falls into the trap of thinking he can bring about his own salvation, and ends up promoting a dehumanized form of development”
&
“Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space. Enclosed within history, it runs the risk of being reduced to the mere accumulation of wealth; humanity thus loses the courage to be at the service of higher goods, at the service of the great and disinterested initiatives called forth by universal charity.”
I choose these quotes because they point out and explicitly warn that an absence of the visions of God, and his gift of eternal life will (and has recently through greed of money) result in dehumanization and lack of service through charity in any future form of human society. My job is to make sure YOU SEE possible stumbelingblocks.
Not true! I think protecting God’s nonhuman creation is important too, I just choose not to
put on horse blinders and ignore everything that exists outside of my end goal. This mentality is the same as that of the IPCC and U.N. It causes everyone to question.
**How many evils are there in the world? Who can follow its every path?
The point I’m going for is that we as Christians are responsible for all people. We are the salt, so it is our duty to expose the greatest or most commonly traveled paths toward sin (abortion is huge here!) and block it. I’m merely trying to point out one of the most obvious ones in a plea for fellow Christians to at least glance that way, and not simply use the ends justifies the means mentality… **
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TEPO
Guest
It is true that our bodies come from the earth, and that our bodies are the temples which hold the holy Eucharist. This places man instantly above creation of earth. The earth is competative. Grass competes with trees for sunlight, foxes compete with wolves for prey, and people compete with people for a million reasons. But our souls are not from earth… They come straight from God through the Holy spirit and land directly in our earthly bodies. and God is not from the earth, he made it. Still even though he made earth, he also made satan, which he competes with for our souls.
Competition creates greed. We are forced to compete and fall into sin through greed because of the devil. We cannot escape it. We can only limit it but never escape it. If you think you can create a system without greed, then you must think you are greater than God. One greed will replace another, its the devils mission.
As Christians we are supposed to channel competition and greed into ways that are positive. We have to beware of people getting greedy with placing emphasis on the earth.
Earth worship in the near future is not impossible considering the current circumstances.
O
otjm
Guest
Uh, realization that much of this was going on before man walked the earth, and that it will continue, and the earth will survive because it is designed for the give and take of various chemicals and combinations?New information from everybody’s favorite…NPR!!!
npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112288478
"Scientists are surprised to discover that a gas produced mainly in agriculture is doing more to damage the Earth’s ozone layer than synthetic chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons.
The culprit is a gas called nitrous oxide, known in your dentist’s office as laughing gas. But in the stratosphere, it’s no laughing matter."
“I think that limiting nitrous oxide is going to be more difficult than, for example, limiting carbon dioxide emissions. And we know how difficult that is,” she says.
That’s because we need nitrogen — it’s an essential part of protein. Carbon dioxide comes mostly from smokestacks and tailpipes.
“You can get your energy from other sources than carbon, but you really can’t get your food from sources other than nitrogen.”
man…
I am constantly reminded of the hysterical predictions made after Mt St. Helens came uncorked. The land would be devestated ofr generations - we were hearing a hundred years or more for the land to repair itself. A couple of years later, deer and elk had returend to browse on the green shhots which were poking up all over everywhere.
Was there devestation? It seemed almost indescribable, to see literally miles and miles of trees laid out like so many matchsticks, pointing unidirectionally with the blast force. But Chicken Little spoke with authority; the sky had fallen (blown out, more accurately) and all was ended.
Not.
C
Contarini
Guest
Sure. And if more government intervention in the economy will result in fewer abortions, that should be weighed out too.
I’m really confused. I’m saying just the opposite. (I feel like Lucy talking to the Dufflepuds. “Nothing like an opposite! Keep it up, both of you!”) I said that we should do what we believe to be right and just and *trust *that these actions will have the right results. In other words, the intrinsic value of the means is of *absolute *importance for me. If anyone’s saying that the ends justify the means, it’s you. You’re the one saying that if doing something that appears to be good and just (protecting the environment) results in people being poorer, which results in them having more abortions, then we shouldn’t do that good and just thing. You are the one saying that if free enterprise reduces the number of abortions, that’s a point in its favor. You aren’t saying that *anything *that will reduce the number of abortions is OK, which is why I haven’t accused you of saying that the ends justify the means.
But how you can possibly accuse me of saying that the ends justify the means is totally beyond me!
I’m not quite sure in what sense this is a response to what I said. But that’s OK. I may have misunderstood you in the first place.
But so far I can’t see that you have pointed out any. They’ve been a lot of red herrings from start to finish, frankly.
Actually this is exactly what I see you doing, with your argument that we should ignore environmental issues because they might distract us from fighting abortion.
**
**True goods are not in essential competition with each other. True, no one can do everything at once. But you’re the one setting up a competition between abortion and the environment which simply doesn’t need to exist. Let’s do our best to convince all prolifers to be environmentalists and all environmentalists to be prolifers, and the problem will be solved! But insofar as you try to keep this from happening, you’re hardly helping either cause. You’re giving environmentalists an excuse not to be prolife, just as you’re using the errors of prochoice environmentalists as an excuse not to be an environmentalist.
Again, this rhetoric seems odd to me since to some extent you seem to be using an ends justify the means mentality. You are saying that we look at the evil we want to stop (abortion), identify the means needed to stop it, and then make those means our top priority. I am saying that we look at what is intrinsically good and true and do that. I am saying this precisely because I *don’t *think that the ends justify the means. I think that on the contrary, good means will lead to good ends, and bad means to bad ones. We can’t see far enough ahead to engage even in the kind of moderate ends-justify-the-means approach that you are claiming.
In fact, the main reason I support environmentalism is that most of the things they advocate seem intrinsically good to me. Population control is the huge exception. (I am not convinced that limiting family size is bad, but I certainly think it should not be given the importance many environmentalists give it, and unquestionably the use of abortion as a means of population control is hideously evil.) But most of the things environmentalists say we should do involve the practice of the traditional virtue of temperance and the cultivation of the place where God has put us. These are good things to do. So let’s do them. I am deeply suspicious of people who go out of their way to endorse minority scientific perspectives whose primary purpose appears to be to let us off the hook in practicing these traditional virtues.
Edwin
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