Will my job land me in hell?

[Karen10]

puzzleannie:

if your job consists of or includes activities which encourage, enable or promote sinful actions on the part of others, or which themselves are objectively sinful, yes you are in very grave danger of hell, since urging and abetting others in comitting sin is itself a mortal sin. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his immortal soul? Push carts at walmart or flip burgers if you have to, but change jobs.

It’s not always cut and dry like that. You could call it sinful to sell burgers to a person with a severe health problem, who shouldn’t have burgers on his menu. You could be selling beer to an alcoholic at Walmart. This is the reason that I suggest people read the blog post by Jimmy Akin. It is helpful in sorting out the moral theology of these predicaments. It deals with intrinsic evils, level of cooperation, mitigating circumstances, et cetera. I would read his thoughts–with all due respect–before posting a gut opinion, because there’s a lot more at play here than meets the eye. I’m grateful for the well-educated and highly intelligent apologists we have who are able to shed more light on these things! Take advantage of the opportunities to read them!

 

[Feanaro_s_Wife]

Karen10:

Jimmy Akin covered this in a blog post that might be of a lot of help to you. The original question that he answered had to do with cashiers “selling bad stuff”, but he goes into the moral theology of cooperation with evil and the circumstances that affect culpability. Here, I hope it helps:
Selling Bad Stuff

Thank you…I don’t know if anyone else read it or if it helped them, but it helped me.

malia

 

[puzzleannie]

Karen10:

It’s not always cut and dry like that. You could call it sinful to sell burgers to a person with a severe health problem, who shouldn’t have burgers on his menu.

don’t make this harder than it has to be. read my post again. If your job involves doing something objectively immoral or inciting someone else directly to do so, you are cooperating in their mortal sin. You are not responsible for someone else’s free will choices, in a case where the matter is not objectively sinful (like the burger or alcohol) although it might be sinful for some. You are responsible and held accountable by God when you cooperate knowingly and willingly and deliberately in someone else’s sin.

If you work at Walgreen’s, which happens to sell condoms, you are not cooperating in something objectively sinful, because you have no way of knowing how they will be used, who is buying them or why, and a condom by itself is neutral. If your job involves assisting at an abortion clinic, you are sinning directly because there is no other reason anyone is there except to kill innocent lives and direct violent actions against women.

I have read Jimmy Akin’s excellent article, but I was responding to OP’ s question, not to Jimmy Akin, whom I would not presume to debate or advise.

 

[mosher]

Lexee15:

Okay, here is another question…what if they do good things? What if they take their celebirty status and use it to help others? I am married to a very popular radio personality, I don’t always like what he talks about or the jokes that are told or how he talks to women…sometimes vulgar, but you have to have that mind already to understand or see the vulgar part. He has the ability to talk and make comments with a dual meaning. So you could be innocent and never get the dirty meaning…see what I mean? He is no where close to being a Howard Stern…I don’t think I would be able to handle that. But he uses the position he’s in to do good things for others; he’s raised thousands of dollars for transplant patients who don’t have resources, he does toy drives every Christmas and gathers toys for thousands of children who won’t have a present to open, he’s helped people find help for addictions, suicidal thoughts, depression, etc. People seek him out for help. I think this is the biggest reason I fell in love with him, because of his compassion for those less fortunate than he, because he’s willing to take the shirt off his back to cover someone who needs it more that he does. Unfortunately, he isn’t able to use his advice and help for himself which is why we are going through what we’re going through. So this goes back to “do the ends justify the means?” And am I contributing to the loss of his soul because my child and I are living off his salary…we live off what he does for a living, what he chose as a career?

The most basic moral axiom is that the means do not justify the ends.

 

[InSearchOfGod]

The end does not justify the means. Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor? Sin! Money made for ill purposes does not become good no matter what. A bad tree bears no good fruit. Good things can not come from bad things.

Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
-Matthew 7:17-18

All that aside, I can’t put myself in your position, or tell you what to do. But I would certainly let him know that he’s making a terrible decision in his lifestyle.

 

[LukeQ]

For what it is worth for this post, a few years ago I was working for a company that among other things, streamed information through to mobile phones - data, pictures and video. We all knew that in time, the company was thinking of creating an ADULT content section - no need for details… I was to have an active role in the campaign management of it. I turned it down. The manager also expressed his concerns. What is interesting is that the Australian interest at the time was the only group in this global company that shelved its plans to launch the Adult content. I left the company for other reasons some time later.

Luke

 

[wcknight]

In scriptures, John the Baptist tells soldiers to act justly. He does not tell them to quit. But he says for them to accept the wages they make and not treat folks unfairly.
Sometimes in extraordinary circumstances, we have to just do what we think is right to overcome evil. During WWII, the Vatican ordered fake baptismal certificates to protect the Jews in German occupied territories.

We would be in very miserable cirumstances IF the allied soldiers of WW2 did not attack German forces with lethal force. Talking obviously did nothing to deter Hilter from his ambitions of world conquest.

It’s nice to be able to say, never sin, never kill but sometimes, we may be put into a position where we have to act even if it goes against what we might normally consider sinful.

As far as entertainment goes, it’s tough to be entertaining and always keep the conversation on the straight and narrow, but it is possible. It takes more creativity and more awareness in avoiding the sexual inuendo and the bad language but it can be done.

In the past Red Skeleton and Carol Burnett were among the best, now a days, Tony Kornheiser and Shawn Hennidy (sp?) keep it pretty clean.

 

[Madia]

It’s nice to be able to say, never sin, never kill but sometimes, we may be put into a position where we have to act even if it goes against what we might normally consider sinful.

We can never justify sinning. For example, a soldier ordered to torture someone cannot justify torturing that person because he will be disiplined if he doesn’t. This differs from the double effect in which an action has two outcomes, one intended and one permitted yet not intended.

For example, a soldier shooting a terrorist holding hostages has two effects; the death of the terrorist and the rescue of the hostages. The good effect is intended (the rescue) and the bad effect (death) is not intended but merely permitted. You cannot justify doing something intrinsically evil (such as taking the terrorist’s son and beginning to torture him) to bring about the good (rescue of the hostages).

The topic, however seems to be about cooperation with evil, not double effect.