Posted on 07/15/2008 4:47:28 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented on the latest developments to surface regarding the pledge made by Paul Z. Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota, to desecrate the Eucharist:
“Myers was quoted yesterday saying, ‘I have to do something. I’m not going to just let this disappear.’ [Last Friday it was reported that he had acquired a Host.] He continued, ‘Something will be done. It won’t be gross. It won’t be totally tasteless, but yeah, I’ll do something that shows this cracker has no power.’
“The biology professor made it clear that he would never disrespect Islam the way he does Catholicism. When asked about those who abuse the Koran, for example, he said such an act was analogous to desecrating a graveyard. ‘That’s completely different,’ he said. ‘I don’t favor [that idea].’ But when it comes to the Body of Christ, he opines, ‘The cracker is completely different.’
“This isn’t the first time Myers has shown deference to Islam. For instance, two years ago he was critical of the Danish cartoons that simply depicted an image of Muhammad. ‘They [the cartoons] lack artistic or social or even comedic merit, and are presented as an insult to inflame a poor minority.’ So now the Planet-of-the-Apes biologist has divined himself an expert on the artistic value of cartoons. So thoughtful of him. He even went so far as to say that Muslims ‘have cause to be furious.’ (His italic.) Worthy of burning down churches, pledging to behead Christians and shooting a nun in the back, Professor Myers?
“We hope Myers does the right thing and just moves on without further disgracing himself and his university. The letter I received from University of Minnesota President Robert H. Bruininks makes it clear that school officials want nothing to do with his hate-filled remarks. It would also be nice if Myers’ fans would cease and desist with their hate-filled screeds.”
...Cultural evolution. Cultures that evolved the Golden Rule held together and those that didn't fell apart and disappeared. Mencius in China, Hillel in Jerusalem, Buddha, and Socrates all were proponents of a version of the Golden Rule at different times and in widely separated places.
Mere historical eventuation cannot provide a cogent reason for what you are simply taking for granted as an unargued philosophical bias. A description of cultures that held together and cultures that did not cannot account for prescriptive notions of how one ought to live in the future.
As Hume showed, reason alone cannot give rise to moral judgments. Though it can show how best to achieve your ends, it cannot determine what those ends should be. Values supposedly determined either by human flourishing or by "human nature" judgments are not truly right or wrong and not properly moral absolutes.
As for empiricism, it cannot be proved empirically. You want to use Natural Selection as a lever to move the world, but your lever has no fulcrum. Natural selection cannot account for moral incumbency.
Cordially,
I believe it can. It is, however, a very long exposition and requires broad exposure to many disciplines of science, particularly wave mechanics to understand. Very simply put, however, every sapient living thing has evolved a "will to live". Morals, ethics, religions and cultures are simply methods for enforcing that will. Natural selection is a correct, but crude, term for anti-entropic serendipity.
Good day!
> You say, "the penalty being described ("eateth and drinketh damnation to himself") clearly applies to a professing Christian ("But let a man examine himself"). How do you make that out? Yes, it refers to Christians, but not exclusively; although Paul clearly applies it in this instance to his immediate listeners at Corinth ("among you") he does not in any way exclude others, whether believers in other cities, other continents, other centuries, or even unbelievers who come in contact with the Eucharist.
In fact, in the early Church it was considered so important for unbelievers NOT to have contact with the Eucharist, that unbaptized catechumens were required to leave the premises after the Liturgy of the Word and before the Eucharistic worship proper. I believe that Eastern Christians (both Eastern Catholics and Orthodox) still do this.
We in the West don't do this anymore, but the Myers incident provides a good reason why we should, in my very humble opinion.
At the very least, there should be an announcement at every Mass that only those believing Catholics who are not conscious of any mortal sin and who are spiritually prepared, ought to approach the altar for Holy Communion. Again my humble opinion! (It was done that way at my wedding Mass, when the priest knew there would be many non-Catholics in attendance, i.e. my whole blessed tribe of Baptist in-laws!)
Your description of what happens at Mass is pretty accurate, and I heartily thank you for striving for a good understanding of it. (Tip o' the hat! You seem to be in possession of the faculty of reason, making you a whole lot more satisfactory conversation-partner than some of our --- ahem --- Freepin Religious Belligerents.)
I offer these small corrections: 1) When I was growing up, there were always confessors available before every Sunday Mass. That is no longer true at most parishes: usually they have confessions once or twice a week, say on Wed. evenings and Saturday afternoons or somesuch. I personally think they ought to get back to Confessions Available Before Every Sunday Mass. You can see by the tendency of my answers that I am a Catholic Reactionary Troglodyte. :o)
2. As you note, Church doctrine requires that only persons (men, i.e. males) in Holy Orders have the authority to perform the transubstantive act. The Church says further that only a priest has the power to do this. That's distinguishable from "authority." For instance, a rebel priest without any permission of his bishop would still have the power to confect the Eucharist. Such a consecration would be deemed "valid, but not licit" --- in other words, the transubstantiation really takes place,but the act was unlawful. A very serious violation on the part of the priest.
Is our concept of the priesthood tied in to Hebrews 4:14 - 5:3? I suppose it is. You'd have to ask somebody more knowledgeable than am about the whole theological scoop.
3. The "Confiteor" is the penitential prayer you referred to, which takes place at the beginning of Mass. The term for the priest who is celebraing Mss is the "celebrant."
4. "Body and Blood ...some posts say "Body, Blood, Spirit and Divinity")-- both are correct. The second formula just emphasizes that the Eucharist under either form (under the form of bread or wine) is the complete and living Christ. We do not believe we are consuming the body and blood separated, as if we had a bloodless corpse and, separately, the shed blood. Rather, even if one received only the consecrated Host,one is receiving the whole and living Christ, "Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity."
(5) I have never heard a Catholic use the term "wafer," but in any case, "host" and "wafer" mean exactly the same thing. A "wafer" doesn't become a "host." Wafer=host=round peace of unleavened bread. We would say an unconsecrated host becomes a consecrated Host. I have used a capital letter there, "Host," because at that point we are talking about Christ.
All the rest you've written was well-explained. Well done, you!
I think Myers' words, action, and attitudes are those of a man who exhibits, not simple unbelief in God, but contempt for Him. His grandstanding is surpassingly ugly, and spiritually dangerous in the extreme.
I hope he repents. I will pray for that today. Good day to you, sir!
“'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. ‘Tis not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ‘Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg'd lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than for the latter.”
David Hume
(2.3.3.6)
[snip]
"Hume famously closes the section of the Treatise that argues against moral rationalism by observing that other systems of moral philosophy, proceeding in the ordinary way of reasoning, at some point make an unremarked transition from premises linked only by “is” to propositions linked by “ought” (expressing a new relation) — a deduction that seems to Hume “altogether inconceivable ” (T3.1.1.27). Attention to this transition would “subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv'd by reason” (ibid.)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/
Cordially,
Hume was simply wrong. You can rely on a chosen authority or you can arrive at your own belifs based on the evidence available now. Again, Hume was very simply wrong.
With much admiration,
Are Jesus and the martyrs immoral?
On the on hand we have martyrs and people who sacrifice their lives for the good of the unit (or whatever). On the other hand we have people who kill children born alive and think they have a duty to do so.
Are both of these defects in the "will to live"?
One another level, I see that you have a theory about what is. I see know theory about what "should be," unless you are suggesting that there is no "should be".
If we stipulate that every sapient thing has evolved a will to live, we haven't shown that that's a good thing. We've will only have agreed that it is a thing that is, like cancer or sunsets.
Is entropy a bad thing?
I don't know why you ask. I've never even implied it.
Is entropy a bad thing?
Natural selection has made entropy a bad thing. Our cultures evolved to view entropy as a bad thing. They just call anti-entropic acts things like justice and faith and moral and good. The icons of anti-entopy are Jesus and Buddha and Mencius, and Hillel.
In order to show that Hume was wrong you need to show how an ought can be derived from an is. If you can bridge the chasm between facts and values without smuggling in a moral premise somewhere you will be the first to do so, as far as I can tell.
Biological chance cannot serve as the foundation of right and wrong; it is instead their undoing. If human nature and the human mind are the unintentional outcome of the chance concatenations of atoms and natural selection, then right and wrong are accidents, not moral absolutes. There is no reason to trust accidental physical forces as indicators of moral 'goodness'. The very notion is incoherent.
Cordially,
Cosmos and chaos my friend. I can prove it to a thinker like yourself, but you must be open minded. Like zen it ain’t easy, but the trip is worth it for the truly intellectually honest.
;-)
I don't know why you ask. I've never even implied it.
I didn't think you had, necessarily. I was exploring the, what, dimensions of an ethic derived from a "Will-to-live".
Natural selection has made entropy a bad thing.
Okay, I'm confused. Has natural selection made entropy a bad thing or has it made entropy something lots of people THINK is a bad thing?
I'm suggesting that there is a distinction between what people think and what things are.
Do you think entropy is a bad thing?
I'm not trying to back you into a corner or anything. I'm trying to understand agnostic or atheist ethics.
That's how it seems to me also.
There is no reason to trust accidental physical forces as indicators of moral 'goodness'.
Again, there may be some question about "accidental" but that seems right to me.
You co-opt the language of virtue, as here above, to which, I humbly reply, you have no philosophical or theological claim. (I say 'theological' because obviously you do not mean to be speaking as though you adopt Christian premises.) The straight walls of reason and morality require a foundation. If you are to prove what you claim you must do so on your own premises, not mine, and without assuming the very thing you are trying to prove.
For example, your appeals to the virtues of open mindedness and intellectual honesty above presuppose some absolute standard of moral wisdom by which you grade one morality as either inferior or superior to others. Likewise, by the modifier, 'intellectual' you presuppose a fixed criterion for what constitutes proper noetic functioning of human beings. The notions of "open-mindedness" and "intellectual honesty" assume an established benchmark for moral and mental health by which to assess both.
If you were speaking in terms of the Christian world view, your attempt to assess moral wisdom and noetic dysfunction -- as well as to adversely judge shortcomings in these matters, I would understand and expect because as a Christian, I believe there is a universal, objective and absolute standard of morality in the revealed word of God. In the Christian view it also makes sense to speak of things not functioning as they ought to function, because they were designed for a purpose. But obviously you do not mean to be speaking as though you adopt Christian premises. On your presuppositions this is a universe of chance/necessity that shows no evidence of design, where "laws" are nothing more than statistical averages describing what has happened in the past, and that the human animal is the result of an impersonal, blind physical process of evolutionary natural selection.
What you will have to demonstrate is what sense it makes to speak of non-teleological, brute physical forces not functioning as they ought to function. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to show on what basis you issue your moral evaluations and judgments of intellectual health, and in terms of what view of reality and knowledge you assume that there is anything like an objective criterion of morality and proper noetic functioning by which to find them lacking.
I will not allow any contraband of illogic. I do not yet know exactly what your world view is, but I predict that if your premises are followed to their logical conclusion, your moral judgments will not comport with your assumption that somehow biological might makes right, that that a species, merely by succeeding biologically, gets to use itself as the measure of good and evil. I think you will not be able to derive a system of moral absolutes; what you will end up with is a system of biological relativism. In short, it will not account for any morality or virtue worthy of the name.
But, I'm open minded. I'm all ears. Fire at will:^)
Cordially,
I had come to the conclusion that natural selection drove the evolution of complexity in the physical world. I asked myself if it also applied to the world of ideas. This was before internet search engines so I relied on books. I hypothesized that discrete ideas could act like genes and be worked on by natural selection within and between cultures.
I live in Pittsburgh and we have the wonderful Carnegie Library system. I could look up a book in my local branch and if it wasn’t there, I could request a book from any of the other branches or the main library and it would be delivered to my branch in a few days. I got so familiar to the librarians that I could occasionally get non-circulating or even rare books.
Looking into genetics, I came across Richard Dawkins and his theory of memes. He had postulated that ideas acted like genes in the 1970’s and called these idea genes “memes”. There is now a whole field of study called “Memetics”.
Like you gentlemen, I wondered how “good” could exist in the world, not only without God, but with God too. Is “good” objectively good, or is it simply relatively good by chance or fiat? In other words, if God or nature told us bad was good would we see bad as good?
This takes me back to the Golden Rule. Although Jesus refined it to its positive form, others had expressed it in the negative earlier. The negative form I will call the “Silver Rule” for discussion purposes. A famous Jewish Scholar who died shortly before Jesus was born has a story associated with the Silver Rule: A young fool approached the Rabbi and said:
“I will convert to Judaism if you can teach me the law while standing on one foot”
The master raised one foot and said, “Do not do to others that which you despise! The rest is just commentary. Go and study it”
I am paraphrasing from memory, so it may be that it was the fool who raised his foot :).
Socrates in Greece, Mencius in China, Buddha in India, Hillel and Jesus in Judea, all came up with the same idea within about 500 years of each other. At first I thought that Alexander’s conquests might account for the spread of this meme, but studying the teachers’ other writings, it was obvious that they had arrived at it independently from very different intellectual starting points. This process is called convergent evolution by biologists.
Natural Selection is a sloppy term. It works well enough generally, but natural selection in the particular, is simply an event, or series of events acting on a subject,. Why would the Silver Rule be a major part of the philosophy of great civilizations? Why wouldn’t there be just as many “Black Rule” (f*** everybody) civilizations? In fact, the golden rule seems to fly in the face of Richard Dawkin’s selfish gene theory and the basic premise of evolution that we are all in a competition to spread our genes.
I looked for civilizations that worshipped the “black Rule”. I took human sacrifice to be a marker for the Black Rule. There were empires in America, Africa, and the Middle East, that I studied. I was getting into their very interesting history when the one salient fact hit me. They were all gone, extinct in other words. This was more evidence for natural selection acting on memes.
I have to wrap this up, but consider:
5 men acting together can usually defeat one man. 100 men can crush 5. In a world filled with challenges, it has been proven that the more people acting together the better are their chances for survival. This coming together though requires some glue to keep it together in the face of our personal needs, wants, and desires. To keep a group together the cohesive force of the glue has to be greater than the pressure of individual needs. Physical force has been used to hold kingdoms together, but kingdoms, too are becoming extinct. Democracy is on the rise and democracies are dependent (loosely!) on the will of the people. People stay in democracies voluntarily.
All of this coming together and creation of group institutions is a progression from a simple every-man-for-himself paradigm to a highly complex religio-cultural one. In common usage, this is a case of entropy in reverse or anti-entropy. Complex systems are supposed to break down into simpler ones, not the other way around.
If you look at almost every thing you consider “good” you will see that it tends toward bringing people together. The things you consider “bad” like stealing, murder, adultery, lying, cheating, hate etc. will destroy cultures, that’s why cultures create laws against them.
In other words, good is ant-entropic and bad is entropic.
Try thinking about naturally bad things like poison. Why are they bad? A poison simply interrupts a function required for life. Death is entropic. You break down to your component parts.
The Golden Rule exists because cultures that subscribe to it as a goal thrive and grow and spread the meme. Those that do not wither and die. Islam will adopt it or die, for example.
“Good” you see, fights entropy. Good is cosmos, bad is chaos.
You are wrong about Dawkins or don't understand his theory.
I’m not ignoring you guys. I’m learning how to make mojitos. My guess is mojitos will give the desire to do theology but take away the ability. Didn’t Shakespeare say that?
I’ve got mint growing every where in my yard. Except for mojitos and a few greek dishes, I don’t know what it’s good for.
Mint is a heavy feeder. We have two mint beds and about every other year we dig up one and fertilize (compost, mostly) the heck out of it. It seems to keep it nice.
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