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Pope Denounces Some Biotech as Affront to 'Human Dignity'
eldavojohn writes "Today in a speech the pope denounced human cloning, embryonic stem cell research and artificial insemination, citing them as a violation of 'human dignity.' That said, the pope did 'appreciate and encourage' research on stem cells from non-embryonic cells in the human body. The pope encouraged the Vatican to be a leading voice in the philosophy and discussion of bioethics. 'Church teaching certainly cannot and must not weigh in on every novelty of science, but it has the task to reiterate the great values which are on the line and to propose to faithful and all men of good will ethical-moral principles and direction for new, important questions,' Benedict said."
Far too many registered voters and politicians.
Well, it's not as if he had much of a choice of what to say, to maintain consistency with church doctrine. If he encouraged it, there would come some rather unpleasant questions as to what, exactly, would require baptism; if a cloned person has a cloned soul; whether you receive some of the soul of the fetus that gave the stem cells when, for whatever reason, you use said stem cells--all a bunch of nasty theological problems.
Frankly, is there anything else he -could- have said?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Catholics who can't conceive are gonna be pissed too. Though I thought nowadays it was acceptable to simply ignore the pope when he makes an ass out of himself.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
We listen to engineers and scientists when they have demonstrated some expertise in their fields of expertise.
Considering how much scandal comes out of the religious leadership field, I'd say religious leaders are no more moral than ordinary people and have no better grasp of ethics than ordinary people.
Infuriate left and right
Well, some geek protestants had to change churches when the leadership all went creationist-crazy... I know I had to :(
No sig for the moment.
Though people in religious traditions might disagree with the pope, they nonetheless would express some opinion about his pronouncements, as opposed to Slashdot atheists, who think he says nothing of import for or against their own metaphysical views (or lack thereof).
If you don't like the research, refuse the treatments when you are sick in the hospital. Why do some religious types feel they need to impart their beliefs on everyone else?
Don't agree with or like abortion - fine - don't have one. Don't like what you hear on the radio or see on TV - fine also, change the channel.
Just don't tell me what to do - I have a brain in my skull and I know how to use it independently.
-ted
Not an option. He's the pope. He has to say something, and he has to remain consistent with earlier doctrine--unless he decides to do something other than what he's been doing his entire papacy and take a bold new stance.
John Paul II might have considered it, but Benedict is extremely conservative and is living up to the 'placeholder' assessment that most people had of him at the time of his election.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Lets try a thought experiment: pretent that the Dalai Lama had spoken the Pope's words. Are those words more or less palatible based on who says them?
You don't even need to be religious to see that the commodization of human life, to say nothing of unfettered transhumanism, are not, on their face, good things. Call me a pesimist, but I'm more with Bill Joy than Ray Kurzweil.
A final thought: if there was the slightest chance that, by a snap of the fingers, I could remove all the harm to others attributed to the Roman Catholic Church, I'd do it - and I'm Catholic. Unfortunately, none of the evils attributed to Catholicism in particular or religion in general would disappear. So the cause must be elsewhere.
I think his point is that human beings shouldn't be made in labs, as if they were bacteria cultures or something like that.
ehhh, that position is arguable. That's like saying we should leave it up to a bunch of cannibals to decide if we should be allowed to eat humans in our society. Or leaving it up to the IRA to decide whether more restrictions should be imposed on the sale of shotguns in the US. There's a huge bias involved in saying, "hey, let the scientists decide if we should allow science to progress unhindered or not." Science inherently comes with no ethics. Its a dangerous deal to say let science take care of it. I know my analogies are obviously extreme, but they focus on the point i'm trying to make. You're giving a very important decision to a very biased group. I'm not saying the church is the right one, but I know they at least consider that which isn't scientific (dignity for one is not a scientific principle).
I think that catholics who can't conceive were already quite pissed off by the fact that they couldn't conceive.
I'm not too sure how an organization that spent decades hiding pedophiles has any business lecturing anyone on human dignity.
The only thing, apparently, more infinite than God is the human capacity for intense hypocrisy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You know what the real affront to human dignity is?
Organized religion.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
The "dignity of man" referenced by the Catholic Pope, regardless of modern religion, is the basis of the enlightenment and of all modern secular humanist societies and of the concept of human rights. Once the concept of innate human dignity is gone, you end up with societies where human beings are nothing more than raw material for the State machine. As the concept fades you see inhumane state practices appear such as denying health care to the obese in the UK or mandatory abortions in China. The needs of people can be ignored when they become inconvenient or expensive to the state if there is no innate dignity of man.
Close, anyway. First thing I thought when I saw the headline "Pope denounces some biotech as affront to human dignity" was "Most religion is an affront to human dignity, Catholicism right at the head of the pack."
I don't feel that it is my place to tell them what to believe, but that doesn't make me think they're anything but a bunch of whacked-out loonies, driven by insecurity, fear and an inability to deal with the idea that some questions may not have answers, and others we may never know the answers to.
Religion is the crack-pipe of the masses. Makes some of them hyper, drives others to euphoria, costs them much time, treasure and effort, all the while debilitating their faculties of reason.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
he has to remain consistent with earlier doctrine
When given a choice between remaining consistent with earlier doctrine and remaining consistent with reality, why should we choose the former?
It isn't the Roman Catholics you should fear. It is the other Christians who are running the country (meaning the US) right now.
>> let's just stipulate that there is no god and be done with the pope already?
Firstly let me make it clear that I personally do not follow any religion, so have no iterest in defending the christian church, however:
* There is no evidence that proves God doesn't exist. Until that is found your stipulation has no merit.
* His point seems to be that this stuff is an affront to human dignity, which has nothing to do with religion. E.g. I for example have dignity yet am not a follower of any religion.
Actually without reading more than the headline, I think the pope's point is very well made. Personally I feel scientists in some cases are definately going too far. I also have seen more than enough evidence to prove that most companies will do anything to make money for now, regardless of the ethics or wider implication of their actions.
As a scientist and agnostic, the most sensible delineation I've heard was outlined by Carl Sagan (though I don't know if it was originally his idea or not). At about sixth months, the fetus actually begins to think. There is a point where neural activity undergoes a significant change.
It seems reasonable to me that what most makes us human is our minds, and thus once a fetus has a human mind, it should be considered human.
It is odd, backwards thinking, and outright excessive for the vast majority of the posters who are stating the denouncement of artificial insemination is the only option for couples who can't have children.
In many countries across the globe, there are large legitimate orphanages with many orphans seeking new parents. I find it closed-minded the posters here choose not to recognize many of these orphanages are backed by religious organizations including the Catholic Church. It's not like the Church denounces abortion and artificial insemination... they actually "walk the talk" when funding the alternative.
In contrast to adoption, artificial insemination costs a lot of money and time. The procedure is not perfect, fails many times, and each time can cost in the tens of thousands of US dollars.
Sounds exactly like religion to me!
First of all, I need you or the Pope to demonstrate that God exists. Then we'll talk about whether the Pope is any better informed on what this alleged being wants and demands than, say, your average auto-mechanic or a half-dead chipmunk.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Look, I don't even recognize the papacy; but the silly attacks on this Pope on Slashdot have got to stop. You aren't even using logic and reasoning in your arguments. You just made two disjointed statements. The fact that the Pope belives in God (obviously) does not imply that he thinks we should abandon Science and Technology. In fact he never attacked anything regarding science. He just made his and the Catholic Churches opinion about the moral-ethical debate surrounding certain research and procedures known. There is nothing wrong with that. Religious people are not the only people who see an ethical dilemna within certain research and procedures. Do you mean to imply that all research is acceptable including research on unwilling medical subjects?
This is what I love about slashdot. Every biotech article gets tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong", yet every article which mentions religious people saying the same, it's all "religion is all lies".
Newsflash: if there exist invisible super-beings, then there's no way to tell! If you get all holier-than-thou because you are so certain that unprovability is equal to nonexistance, you really need to read up on Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Your faith that there do not exist invisible super-beings is just as irrational as the Pope's faith that there are.
He's the fucking Pope. He defines reality.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
He might mean humanity as a whole rather than an individual human. It's a somewhat abstract and foreign concept to most Americans(Mostly Christian protestant or post-Christian protestant). I think a crime against humanity doesn't imply that the victims are only those directly harmed by the crime, but humanity as a whole. So, it calls all of humanity to respond to the crime. Catholicism is, by definition, not individualistic. So the pope is in essence trying to act as a voice of caution in the human conscience.
I think his concern is that certain humans are being selected to die while others are being selected to live depending on their genetics. This is nearly identical to being opposed to genetic-screening during job interviews if you believe that a human embryo is a human life, except on even more ruthless terms(life and death). In other words genetic pre-screening during the interview for a 'job' as someones child.
I am not Catholic, but I can see why he is concerned.
That's a job for the scientists that actually understand what they're doing.
Actually, as a scientist, I would disagree with that. I agree that ethics should be judged by someone who understands what the scientists in question are doing (which clearly excludes the pope) but it should be judged by someone with a little more distance from the issue. Otherwise you end up with a conflict of interest between wanting to see if you are correct vs. doing the right thing.
There is no evidence that proves God doesn't not exist. Until that is found your stipulation has no merit.
That's why proving imaginary things don't exist isn't science.
was in a emotional or financial situation where bringing a baby to term would cause her undue stress, resulting in a child she did not love, and all the psychological f***ups that accompany that, i would prefer that my mother not continue her pregnancy past the 3 month old part, and she would have done nothing wrong by my judgment
because before 3 months, what i was inside my mother was not me, and was not alive in any human sense
there is hamburger on my plate. i will eat it, and it will become the stuff of my organs and bones, it will become human life. so i should look at the hamburger on my plate with the spiritual and legal reverence of a human life?
pfffffffft
same observation applies to the blob inside a woman before 3 months
it's POTENTIAL human life. NOT human life. in any spiritual, intellectual, logical, moral, or legal consideration you can devise
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why should the null hypothesis be "God exists"?! That's a terrible hypothesis.
Your point is easily refuted by simple subsitution.
"There is no evidence that proves an invisible pink/purple unicorn with 12 teeth is not sitting on my desk".
Should you accept that based on faith alone until someone proves me wrong?
THINK!
I'm not too sure how an organization that spent decades hiding pedophiles has any business lecturing anyone on human dignity. The only thing, apparently, more infinite than God is the human capacity for intense hypocrisy.
Your statement sounds nice and everything, but it's awfully flawed.
a) The Catholic Church has not hidden pedophiles. SOME PRIESTS AND BISHOPS have. By your standards, the United States should disappear from the face of the earth since they has decades abusing human rights. Right? RIGHT?
b) Usually the priests who lecture people on human dignity are NOT the ones hiding pedophiles. If you disagree, I challenge you to mention anything evil John Paul II has done, because he lectured A LOT about human dignity.
c) All catholics *ARE* the Catholic Church. If you want to say something bad about priests and bishops, don't say "Catholic Church". Say "the Clergy".
d) By generalizing, you make all the good priests look worse than the bad ones. Because it's the bad ones who are pedophiles, and the good priests are the ones fighting for human rights. Oh but since they're all catholic anyway, they're all part of the same corrupt organization and all should be labelled as hypocrites. Perhaps we should label Martin Luther King Jr. as a hypocrite too, since he endorsed christianity (he was a Lutheran pastor, after all) and Christianity is full of hypocrites?
I'm amazed how bashing and name calling granted you insightful. You'd be a wonderful Fox News reporter.
And I'm a scientist - so let's test that. I'll hold a piano over his head suspended by a pulley and a rope. The Pope can say that he declares gravity to be heresy. I'll let go of the rope.
If he really does define reality, he should be in no danger. I have a theory on how the test would end, though.
The short of it is these people should not be dictating to scientists. Why?
Read up on what they did to Galileo, for daring to suggest the Earth is not the center of the universe - which they just got around to forgiving him for, which took them until 1992 to fucking get around to.
There is no way these people should have any input whatsoever in a scientific context.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Wow, to go against reason AND God's decree, they must really hate embryonic stem cell a lot... or perhaps they just want to rake in some more donation from crazy people who want to blame ESC for the moral degeneration of our society.
You're truncating his argument to make it sound ridiculous. What's hated is the use of embryos. He's arguing that a human embryo has the same dignity the rest of us do. You may reject that -- and that rejection has its own moral danger -- but you shouldn't mis-state his argument.
Actually, I think most of the problem is with his conservative stance--he's trying to stay still, as it were, rather than moving with the times.
And in some places, this works. Catholicism has been gaining a lot of ground in Africa and South America even as it loses influence in the 'richer' countries--leading to, amongst other things, rather amusing conflicts between hereditarily Catholic (but not actively participating) Quebecois and immigrants to Quebec who are 'taking over' the old Catholic churches.
JPII actually endorsed evolution at one point--though Benedict has made a few noises about that 'intelligent design' nonsense. (And I hear that Ben Stein's buying into that old fallacy with some movie that makes him look like he's trying to be the next Michael Moore--but I digress.)
As Christian churches go, though, the Catholic church really isn't that bad. Its main problems are its pre-eminence as the largest christian denomination and its two millenia (minus a couple hundred years, if you're counting from the Council of Nicea) of institutional inertia. Benedict does represent the inertial side of things, yes, but he's not forever--and the next pope, the way these things go, should be a bit more on the progressive side.
What you really have to watch out for are certain of the protestant denominations--they're the ones who're trumpeting creationism, setting up creationist museums, actively picketing abortion clinics, etc.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Artificial Insemination is an interesting one. Basically it is using externam equipment to produce a fertilized egg and then insert it into a woman who otherwize cannot succeed through normal means. It is a well-known practice and can even, for the squeamish, be performed for a married couple using only their eggs and sperm, no external players are needed.
/.ers might scoff at the pope and in many countries even ones with large Catholic populations like the U.S. his claims don't carry the weight of law. But in modern democratic Italy he can still arrainge for consenting married couples who want to raise healthy children of their own to be denied it because the process is "an affront".
Interestingly this procedure, well-accepted in most western societies is banned in Italy even for married couples using their own genetic material thanks to the Church. The argument goes something along the lines of: "If god wanted them to have kids he would let them do it normally."
It is interesting because most
What we need to determine is whether it's right or moral to do something. Is a single sperm considered a human life? I would say no. Is an egg? I would say no. What about a blastocyst? Fetus? It's easy to say that a baby's not a life until they're born, but what if my wife's going into labor, but outside the hospital some jackass punches her in the stomach until the baby dies? Is that assault or is it murder?
Science doesn't have these answers. If you look purely to science to see whether research should be done or not, you end up skinning Jews alive to see how long they live just as easily as you end up shooting beta particles at a thin gold sheet. Science can give us the information to make those decisions, but science can't make them for us.
* There is no evidence that proves God doesn't exist. Until that is found your stipulation has no merit.
There is no evidence that proves ghosts don't exist. Until that is found, your [argument that ghosts don't exist] [has no merit]
There is no evidence that proves midichlorians don't exist. Until that is found, your [argument that the force doesn't exist] [has no merit]
There is no evidence that proves invisible giant elephants don't exist. Until that is found, your [argument that they don't exist] [has no merit]
There is no evidence that proves undetectable/invisible spherical beings don't exist. Until that is found, your [argument that they don't exist] [has no merit]
There is no evidence that proves the Mormon golden plates didn't exist. Until that is found, Mormons are right.
There is no evidence that proves we're not part of the Matrix. Until that is found [your argument that the Matrix doesn't exist] [has no merit]
Same goes for anything.
Proving that some things don't exist is practically impossible.
We gather evidence. The evidence points to possible conclusions. Some more likely than others.
There is no proof of the tooth Fairy, we don't believe in it (her?).
There is no proof of Santa Clause, we don't believe in him.
There is no proof of many other creatures from many other cultures, we don't believe in them.
As kids you believed in them because there was evidence... you got presents. Then you got told the truth.
Same goes for God. Why do adults still believe in God?
You do not need to believe in God to have ethics.
As for ethics, I do agree that science has many gray areas. There are gray areas for any Society.
"* There is no evidence that proves God doesn't exist. Until that is found your stipulation has no merit." I propose my theory a giant ball of cream cheese is at the edge of the universe. Can you disprove that? No - well then until you can we should all assume the ball of cream cheese to be true.
Oil tycoons, and the auto industry were not very happy when scientists started saying that their products were hurting the earth. Of course, they kept on doing it and encouraging every one else to. And they can continue to now. However, there are long term consequences for doing the wrong thing, even if you disagree that its wrong. Rush Limbaugh can get together a bunch of people and have an anti global warming party, and they can feel all nice a fuzzy that its culturally acceptable to disbelieve in global warming and laugh at Al Gore and the Nobel committee. It still doesn't mean they are correct, or that there won't be severe consequences for everyone if we don't do something about it.
The Pope is speaking on similar moral truths. If allow ourselves to start restricting further and further the definition of life, it will become easier for us to eliminate everyone else that falls outside those boundaries. Humans can't be trusted to decide who lives and who dies.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
At the bare minimum you could use economic and social theories to show why murdering people is wrong and leads to unsustainable societies. It's possible to argue against things scientifically it's just a lot harder then just saying "because I say so".
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
And the Pope - as a cover-up artist for internationally-organized pederasty? That's NOT a problem?
Some pole-smoker in a gold hat? Jesus would kick that Pharisee from the temple!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
But if you count the good and the bad that science brings us, we're unquestionably much better off because of science. You can't say the same for religion.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Mr100Percent says: Have you ever been in a mosque? It's a peaceful and relaxing place. Muhammed says: The best mosques for women are the inner parts of their houses. I'd thinking the guy with the 9-year-old bride has the more informative quote when it comes to how women are treated.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Unlike the common misconception that the Church does not like sex is strongly misguided, otherwise the Church would be doing God a great disservice to associate him so closely with sex. The Church just disagrees with the way that many people chose to express their sexuality.
For more or this teaching, look up the Theology of the Body, a phrase that refers to the sexual teachings of John Paul II.
The other aspect of this is that people change as they go through their lives. I'm only 23, but I know a lot more about life and morality than I did at 18. I'm sure that perspective will change again by the time I'm a father and again by the time I'm a grandfather. Getting more knowledge of what other people have thought were moral through their lives can help balance your own perspective.
Such a comment just confirms what I've said before about Atheists.
Nice generalization. I'm an atheist, but just because I don't believe in that superstitious junk doesn't mean I give a damn whether you have an open mind (by my definition, or yours). I don't.
Your morals are not the same as everyone else's morals--as such, your definition of 'barbaric' will differ; I, for one, consider the standpoint where one lets someone die painfully rather than hurt a clump of cells that may not actually grow into something capable of living on its own to be barbaric.
Fair enough. But once we start making that choice to extinguish one life to save another, where does it end? We could just as easily go to the other end of the scale and say, exterminate all the muslims pre-emptively rather than risk a nuclear attack on the West, thus saving millions of lives by killing a billion. Or, for that matter, vice versa.
The point is, once you've given yourself the right to kill to save a life, regardless of the tiniest smattering of cellular humanity that it might be, someone else is going to claim the right for themselves as well, and you've turned discussion about something that we intuitively think should be sacred, into a political punting game. For a more real example, consider the death penalty. Murderers have very high recidivism rate, particularly serial killers. If you kill them, then, you obviously save lives. But some people won't make that moral choice. It all rather depends on whether you think a fetus has more social redeeming value than the likes of John Gacy.
This is my sig.
From the Borg perspective, I doubt that many consider it "unity through compulsive slavery"; they consider it as they were created and taught in a group that needs common beliefs and goals, forgoing personal good for the group's good, and assimilation, to survive. Borg that stay in the collective do so "voluntarily", according to their beliefs.
Compared to the Catholics, which members consider it as they were born and raised in a society that needs common beliefs and goals, forgoing personal good for church's and society's good, and recruiting, to survive. Catholics that stay with the church do so "voluntarily", according to their beliefs.
From the members' point of view, they're not so different...
I am not a sig.
I'd suggest that the vast majority of believers haven't honestly considered the possibility there is no god, or that they might've been raised to believe in the wrong one. Indeed, to deny the existence of the Abrahamic god is an unforgivable sin.
Indoctrination does not really lend itself to free choice; people are tremendously easy to manipulate. It's one of the oldest skills, and now one of the most perfected.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Different anonymous coward here.
What you've essentially said above is that the Catholic church doesn't forcibly brainwash and enslave. Instead it relies on the weakness of the individual ad that you personally think this is wonderful. Hey, most Nazi's weren't forced to march or rally in the beginning either. (Please invoke Godwin if you wish, I have no interest in long protracted arguments with people that refuse to reason)
The problem is simply this. No religion is logically consistent. Whenever I bring up this fact in discussion with a religious person they start rambling about metaphysics, what can and can't be proven, different kinds of knowledge etc. but the fact is this. You believe things that are unlikely and/or proven false to the best limits of human knowledge. You don't construct arguments on a logical basis but rather on cultural history in the form of books. This simply doesn't allow for self correction the way scientific method does. Religions only change very slowly over time, otherwise they lose their identity and splinter. Instead religions reinforce falsehoods and confuse moral argument (which admittedly is very difficult to construct on logical grounds, but that doesn't mean we should be sheep who chant and look to myths written hundreds or thousands of years ago for our morality).
Yes they were intertwined but only in so much as the state had a "recognized" religion. The idea of "Separation of Church and State" in the US was more an experiment in ensuring that every religion had equal opportunity under the law. That is, no one religion would usurp all others. True the Pope did wield quite a bit of power, again, when the monarchs so chose to go against the Papacy, they did so with ease more often than not. In fact, the Holy See was often under the thumb of state powers, particularly in having to "appoint" those hand picked individuals of the State to be ordained bishops and act as nuncios. Too often people make bold blanket statements with regards to the Catholic Church without much knowledge in history whatsoever. I'm not stating you are doing that, but you are certainly mistaken on a few points.
As for the "charges" brought against him, those listed were for his excommunication indeed, but after the "guilty" verdict, his excommunication was finalized. The secular authorities then burned him not because of his excommunication, nor by the request of the Inquisition but because of his practicing magic and divination. Reading Firpo among others will shed much light on this.
The point though that must be driven home is that the Catholic Church (as an entity) did not put people to death, secular institutions did. If in particular places examples exist where people who were Catholic and held power killed people (as in Spain for instance) this must be distinguished from claiming "The Catholic Church did it!" Because that is not the case. Rogue individuals or extremists in any organization act on their own in such matters. When discussing the horrors that went on during the Spanish Inquisition, the Pope was attempting to gain control of the rogue bishops and cardinals but was oftne thwarted by the Spanish monarchy at the time.
You wouldn't say you could rightly kill someone sleeping, in a coma, suspended animation, etc., simply because they had temporarily ceased their conscious thought. You would bring into consideration their potential to resume conscious thinking. So I think it's far from clear that the line of humanity is drawn once consciousness initiates. The fact that it *will* initiate, provided you make no intentionally destructive interventions, seems suspiciously like other cases where we intuitively feel that it is wrong to end life. I'm not saying it is necessarily the same. I feel that it is, quite possibly, impossible to know. But, the thing is, you don't demolish a building until you're sure it's been evacuated, and you don't kill someone or something on a 50/50 hope that it isn't actually murder.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
"The issue is not the baby, but the method."
I don't think so. The method is what the church attacks, but it's only to have a tangible handle on the issue. The church's problem, I think, is that the closer science gets to understanding life and how to bring life about, the more it strips away divinity or metaphysics from life and birth. And *that* the church cannot allow - the shrinking of its domain.
Once the sun was a god, because we had no way of understanding what it was. Currently, conception still carries a lot of metaphysics about it. When that goes away, what will remain? The church will think of something, but they'll have to backpedal a lot, so they do what they can to avert it.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Really? No "except when" statements you say? You say this about the organization that moved Priests around to avoid them being discovered as/prosecuted for being child molesters?
Sorry, but the Catholic Church has no claim to the moral high ground in my eyes. I can respect them slightly more then the typical Evangelical Baptist church, because I haven't had any Catholics try and convert me, but they still don't get to claim any sort of moral high ground in my eyes.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
There are a lot of agreements on things that *aren't* verifiable facts, or are easily 'verifiable' either way depending on which side of the fence you're on.
Gay marriage is wrong. (Objective opinion held by lots of people)
America is a good/bad place to live. (Again, objective opinion which people pull various facts to prove either way)
Sex before the age of consent is bad. (Age of consent varies worldwide with no major issues, so the actual age is just an arbitrary value people agreed on)
Speaking ill of the dead is not polite. (Some cultures don't care, others have *any* speaking of the dead as not polite)
The atom is the smallest possible particle. (For a time, it looked to be)
Slim women are attractive. (Pick a culture, any culture...)
Guns are good. (See NRA)
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
If it weren't for this "method" the boy wouldn't exist. Are you going to tell my nephew that the catholic church would rather see him not existing? I'm glad my brother is not raising him as catholic (despite his mother being a practicing catholic, the fact that the church officially considers her son undesirable is a very good argument for the father).
Awesomely Catholic post - brings me back to my Sunday school days, but without Mr. Rheingold telling me I was going to hell for arguing with my sister. You gave us the what (natural law) without the why ('what is natural law, even briefly and how is it relevant').
...They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person.
For interested readers, here is the relevant passage from the link provided:
QUOTE
Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children."
Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person
END QUOTE
Did you get that? The conjugal act has intrinsic meaning, and if you get knocked up by any other method, the 'meaning' is not there, because the act itself has meaning that cannot be moved elsewhere, nor can any other act have that meaning. The church has bound a specific physical act (copulation between husband and wife) with a specific meaning and decreed that everyone must interpret this conglomeration their way.
So, even if you artificially conceive out of love, in a loving marriage, to raise beautiful children, sorry - 'natural law' says you can't, because the meanings the church has given cannot be changed, nor should they be. Nothing natural about it, actually...
Clearly, the Catholic Church does not have a 'humble' opinion. Must be nice to be right 100% of the time, whilst avoiding the sin of pride too.
Life begins at conception, which presumably means the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception. What happens when the zygote later divides, to form identical twins? Does God intervene and inject a new soul into the womb? What happens, in those rare cases, when two zygotes merge, to form a chimera? Does God intervene and pluck a soul from the womb? Where does it go?
To quote Sam Harris, "this arithmetic of souls simply does not make sense."
"How come God gets credit whenever something good happens? Where was he when her heart stopped?" — Dr. Gregory House
I'm sorry you don't agree, but if you won't acknowledge the church's teaching on these issues, you're not a catholic! No matter how much you say you are, if you disown the pope's teaching, you shouldn't be saying you're catholic. Part of being a catholic is accepting the truths of that church.
David Webb My *real* site: http://davids-pics.blogspot.com My junk site: http://thebigbyte.blogspot.com
WTF is an 'objective opinion'..?
I mean seriously, while the Catholic church has the biggest following of any religion I know of (and the includes baptists, which while not a religion as opposed to a fanatic cult) I haven't seen the Church provide any guidance to anyone as of late... especially since the passing of JPII. I tend to find that if nothing else, the Church seems to put more effort into being heard than listened to.
In the modern world where religion has less and less impact on the operation of governments, corporations and educational institutions. During a time when people regularly openly mock Christians in general as being brain dead (if you haven't noticed it, you're not listening). In an era where people are actually turned down for jobs because they wear a cross around their neck, the Churches will need to now, more than ever show they're evolving with the times. More and more, their followers are the sheep of society, not the leaders.
If the Church genuinely wants to make a difference, they need to, instead of playing the "Moral grounds card", since most people working on the projects do see themselves on higher moral grounds than the Church, provide research to show it's not a good idea. Hire independant (non-religion, possibly atheist) scientists to research the topic as well and present good reasoning that would specifically back up their arguments.
If we go back, long before the Catholic church to the days of exodus, Kosher was presented to a weak people dieing from tape worm, food poisening and other such issues an uneducated population travelling in the desert would be forced to survive. The morals behind Kosher had deeper meaning than "You should not cook thine cattle in the milk of its mother". The problem was that Egyptians classically would baste their meat in milk overnight to cause it to be much more tender. The moral was in reality that deadly tiny little bacteria would form in the meat when it's left on a rock in the desert overnight.
If the Church genuinely feels they have out best interest in mind, remember, we're not a bunch of uneducated brick makers with families travelling in a desert. Do the research to tell us what in fact is morally wrong. Show us the actual answer, we are reasonable and rational people. If you can show that a certain form of scientific progress will has a very highly likelyhood of having a morally negative impact on humankind, we will listen... at least we'll alter our research to avoid the complication.
Ahh, I get it. And in the case of the chimera, God simply changed his mind afterward. Omnipotence and omniscience is a lot of pressure, we certainly can't expect him to always get it right the first time!
So how do you explain Popes teachings that diverge from the teachings of previous Popes? Was the Sun revolving around the earth when the church condemned Galileo? Did the Sun and Earth reverse their relative roles when the church finally acknowledged the truth of Galileo's observations? Which 'truth of the church' should I accept?