The Earth - Not Abortion - Should Be Central Catholic Theme!

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healonzo said:
More important is that what if one of the babies aborted is loved by God more than the earth. Wouldn’t the value of the human being be immeasurable? God loves all human life, the poor on the streets are as valuable as the people who are like Mozart who compose masterpieces.
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Healonzo, I know you prefaced your question with “what if” …then God love babies more than the earth…but do you believe God loves human beings beyond the rest of His or Her creation?

Bruce
 
sedonaman said:
More earth worship. Man, not rats, trees, the earth, etc., is made in the image and likeness of God. The earth and its creatures were created to help man with his material needs, not for man to worship them.
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Sedonaman…where do you see the earth worship in my writing? I say that the earth is inter-connected to humanity and I do not worship humanity…do you?

St. Paul in Romans also indicates that we can know our God by looking at nature…so there is an intimate connection between ourselves and creation as well as what creation can tell us about our creator…many indigenous spirituality and world religions are far ahead of us on this aspect and - OMG - could the Creator’s spirit be working with the rest of his or her creation outside the church?

Other than Genesis, how do you build your arguement up? How do you address the teachings and thinking of such nature saints as Francis of Assisi?

Bruce
 
trickster said:
Sedonaman…where do you see the earth worship in my writing? I say that the earth is inter-connected to humanity and I do not worship humanity…do you?

St. Paul in Romans also indicates that we can know our God by looking at nature…so there is an intimate connection between ourselves and creation as well as what creation can tell us about our creator…many indigenous spirituality and world religions are far ahead of us on this aspect and - OMG - could the Creator’s spirit be working with the rest of his or her creation outside the church?

Other than Genesis, how do you build your arguement up? How do you address the teachings and thinking of such nature saints as Francis of Assisi?

Bruce
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Making the earth central is worshiping a false god.
 
sedonaman said:
So cut off you legs and you’ll never have flat feet.
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Sedonaman…how is that statement helpful to the conversation? What Paulsimmons is saying has a valid place in this discussion whether you approve or not…

Bruce
 
TimothyH said:
What you are stating here is not consistent with Christian belief.

Have you not read Genesis? Have you not read the story of how and why God created all things? God tells us that we are more valuable to him than a rat in the very first two chapters of the Bible.

The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him. So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name. (Genesis 2:18)

God names man but allows man to name the animals. You get named by someone superior to you and through them you get your purpose and your identity. Pharoah renamed Joseph. Jesus renamed Peter. Where you get your name in the bible determines your idenity, your purpose and your order in creation. Man names the animals, and that shows that the animals are below man and serve man. As a good steward, man has to properly care for the animals, but in now way are the animals more valuable to God than man.

God gave all living creaters as a gift.

God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth. God also said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the wild animals, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth, I give all the green plants for food. And so it happened. (Genesis 1:28-30)

Plants serve the animals, animals serve man, and man serves God. That is God’s design. That is the order in which God created everything.

We can talk about being good stewards of the enviroment, but saying that trees and rats are equal in value to humans is not consistent with Christianity and any shuch thought has to be abandoned by one who calls himself a follower of the God of the Christian Bible.

-Tim-
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Hello Tim. My point of course is that the world is interconnected. The scriptures - especially Genesis - is a narrative…it is not a statement of fact. Genesis is simply a narrative to explain to the Hebrew people their world view. So Genesis obviously talks about humanity’s relationship to nature in the way it does. Genesis as a “creation story” enjoys validity as do other cultural stories of creation.

Genesis value is philosophical (if that’s the right word to use)…Genesis emphasises a relationship much like the way you explain it…the earth is for our sustanance…so what does Genesis NOT SAY about our relationship and responsiblity (stewardship) to the earth? It is with a “counter-reading” methodology that I look at Genesis for knowledge it states BY NOT stating it. Genesis does not talk about our responsibility to the earth…does it? Therefore I think that we can take Genesis (not in literal fashion) and construct a theological framework that argues for a less human centered context for our church’s position on abortion…

Thoughts?

Bruce
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
God should be the central Catholic theme, followed by loving your neighbor as yourself. All things are included in these two commandments and it’s not that one thing is more important than the other but rather ALL things are important.
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If you define “neighbour” as the plants, animals and physical earth then I am in full agreement with you 🙂

Bruce
 
trickster said:
If you define “neighbour” as the plants, animals and physical earth then I am in full agreement with you 🙂

Bruce
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I do (gotta love Saint Francis of Assisi); however, I do not hold dogs, cats, and plants as being equall to human life. If a stray dog and a homeless person came to my front door and I only had eough room for one of them, I’m not going to tell the homeless man that he is out of luck just because the dog beat him. 😉
 
paulsimons said:
In response to can humans be resonable. Well lets see there are 7billion people and growing and that is highly do to the reasonable nature of humans. Reasonable for me is I decide what is right for me and you decide what is right for you.
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Well, that depends on the issue. If you mean limiting family size that may be fine. If you mean abortion then no that is not right.
To guilt a women into not having an already hard decision is a terrible thing to do. It is literally “hate”(opposite of love). It makes them feel ashamed for having to make one of the hardest descisions in life.
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What decision? To abort? If that is what we are talking about then guilt is normal.
Also yes even though me and my dogs seem very different Im very sure we both bleed red blood and have the same sense organs(touch,smell, hear,taste,sight). Heck I talk to them and they can even communicate back. So yes we are just animals too. Sure we have thumbs but thats a whole other discussion.
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You have an intellect, free will, and an immortal soul. Christ did not suffer and die for dogs.
 
trickster said:
Then by your logic and the point of this thread are you saying that the Catholic Church “worships” the unborn human fetus?

Bruce
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I didn’t say the unborn human fetus was central Catholic theme.
 
sedonaman said:
I didn’t say the unborn human fetus was central Catholic theme.
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And neither did I say that the earth was a central catholic theme…I simply indicated that there is a possible extension between we think about life within the human species and how we should think about inter-relatedness of creation…that is all 🙂

Bruce
 
trickster said:
Hello Tim. My point of course is that the world is interconnected. The scriptures - especially Genesis - is a narrative…it is not a statement of fact. Genesis is simply a narrative to explain to the Hebrew people their world view. So Genesis obviously talks about humanity’s relationship to nature in the way it does. Genesis as a “creation story” enjoys validity as do other cultural stories of creation.

Genesis value is philosophical (if that’s the right word to use)…Genesis emphasises a relationship much like the way you explain it…the earth is for our sustanance…so what does Genesis NOT SAY about our relationship and responsiblity (stewardship) to the earth? It is with a “counter-reading” methodology that I look at Genesis for knowledge it states BY NOT stating it. Genesis does not talk about our responsibility to the earth…does it? Therefore I think that we can take Genesis (not in literal fashion) and construct a theological framework that argues for a less human centered context for our church’s position on abortion…

Thoughts?

Bruce
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Genesis is not written just for the Hebrews to explain their worldview to other Hebrews. It is more than just philosophy. The ideas in Genesis are truths revealed to all of mankind by God. They are revealed to us through Hebrew culture and language, and are best understood in that context, but they are revealed truths nonetheless.

We might not take a literalist interpretation of Genesis, but the truths they contain which are the revelation of God must be believed.

Yes, Genesis talks about our stewardship of creation.

The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. (Genesis 2:15)

Our first parents wern’t just sitting on lounge chairs all day. They cultivated the garden and cared for it. Remember that creation was a gift from God and that it is a sin to misuse any of God’s gifts. We are ministers of creation. Adam and Eve worked.

Scripture is clear that creation is at our disposal, but like all of God’s gifts, we are not to misuse it. We are ministers to the earth and we are to cultivate it and care for it.

As to abortion, stop for a moment and consider what the Church teaches about evil acts.

***2356 **Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act.

2370 …every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.*

The Church teaches that there are three things which are intrinsically evil. Intrinsic evil means that they are evil by their very nature - there is no good in them at all, and these are rape, contraception, and abortion. There is no good in these acts, ever, which is why I’m having trouble understanding your comment about “a theological framework that argues for a less human centered context for our church’s position on abortion”. I don’t think that is possible. Rape, contraception and abortion are intrinsically evil and bringing anything else into the discussion does not change that.

You asked for my thoughts so I’ll cut to the chase… Cutting babies into pieces and sucking them out of their mother’s womb into jars is evil committed against the most helpless human beings and I don’t think that taking a “less human centered” approach is the right way to do. If anything, I think it is exactly the wrong way to go because it changes the subject to things which take us away from the intrinsically evil act of murdering a human being which has infinite value in the eyes of God.

Remember that Christ himself was one of those infants in the womb of his Mother. We need a more human, infant, baby centered approach, not less.

-Tim-
 
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