Urf:
I’m leaving this here, I have things to say, but we’ve come to the best conclusion there will be
I’ll stand or fall with Sir Thomas any day. Thanks.
I dont consider my ideas and morals universal, so I would find doing that a waste of time. I can argue my case for them, but I do not expect others to think alike. Lastly, writing something like that would make my ideas everything that I disagree with about certain forms of religion. I dont believe that a successful set of beliefs can be put into a book and then applied to anything that comes along.
I know you are just forwarding conventional wisdom, but you need to understand that the logical extension of this profound (and I’m not being facetious) belief system you’ve declared, is that there is no absolute right or wrong. Old and new Catholic theologians like Peter Kreeft (if he is indeed a theologian), have shown that this ideology is philosophically flawed and has disastrous moral consequences. Your belief system looks good to you now, but that is because you can’t see its implications over long periods of time, you just see it as tolerant. With your belief system, people can argue for or against anything. The only ideology that stands up to philosophical scrutiny is one that proclaims to constitue an absolute moral frame of reference upon which derivative decisions can be made. As frustrating as this might seem, the only logical approach is to determine what is actually absolute truth, not to say there isn’t such a thing. And yes, this necessarilly means that there is only one Truth, but it doesn’t mean that all other idealogies are completely untrue. Once you get beyond this hurdle, then the path to Rome becomes very clear. I want to emphasize that this definately does not mean we have to disparage all other idealogies. On the contrary, the Church clearly teaches that there is goodness and value in all the great religions and most informal idealogies (I say most, because I am not sure there is very much value in the skinhead movement for example). It is not a matter of condemming other peoples, but first seeing the good in them, and then attempting to compare and contrast in areas that are different.
I’d like to establish some common ground with you… I am 100% sure that you consider yourself to be environmentally friendly. So do I. It disgusts me to see huge corporations destroying land and polluting rivers, then just moving on without cleaning up when the job is over. The environmental damage is not even included in the economic model of the initiative. They can make ten billion dollars on a strip mine without paying for any of the damange. This is wrong and evil. However, if you think about it for a while, one of the reasons why this has been allowed to happen is because things get very, very complicated. When all the different parameters, including wages of working class people, etc., get factored in, any decent corporate executive/lawyer can make your head spin. The facts are that as far as the environment goes, you can’t isolate any issue. Everything thing in the world is connected. You and I breath the same air and we drink the same water. The only way it is possible to manage all these issues properly, is (a) to have world-wide laws, and possibly universal laws as space is colonized, and (b) to have a world-wide authoritative interpretor of these laws. When/If this is attempted, you’ll find that you can’t seperate economics, from ecology, from sociology, from morality, and ultimately from theology, or if you prefer, metaphysics. There is only one entity on the earth that even comes close to being universal in all these regards. There is only one entity on earth that has equitable representation (and please don’t bring up gender at this point) amongst all the different peoples of the world. If you ever want there to be a chance that all these factors can get resolved equitably between China, England, Italy, Morocco, Sudan, Congo, Argentina, and Greenland, you need the Catholic Church. Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel? All these organization around the world are trying to grow an be this universal arbitrar, but as they grow, they find that they have the same (worse) growing pains than the Church has had over the last 2000 years (10,000 if you include the Old Covenent era).
If you are really interested in understanding Catholic teaching, don’t hide behind the imperfections of your mediocre high school teachers (and priest). Pick up JPII’s Cathechism of the Catholic Church and follow the cathechetical threads (references) of most interest to you. You could also check Peter Kreeft’s stuff, as he is pretty good, accessible, and kind (much more than I):
peterkreeft.com.
I am not sure about this, but I suspect you are female. I strongly recommend “Privilege of Being a Woman” by Alice von Hildebrand.
In Christ,
Sean.
:clapping: