Sight returned to the blind. Light coming from a hole in a consecrated host. I'm not making this stuff up. If you don't believe me, google incorruptible saints or eucharistic miracles. Might surprise you.
I would say that it is a verifiable fact that sin is bad, and because of experiences I have had, I would also say that it is a verifiable fact that confirmation helps people to sin less. When I was confirmed, I was going on faith, but faith is less believing in something unseen, but holding to what is known through hearing.
Amongst my friends in High School, I was the only Catholic. Only one of my parents was/is Catholic, and my mom wasn't pushing me at all. I really made my decision on my own.
I was a Sophomore in High School when I was confirmed, and it was in line with my desire at that point. Also, Baptism gives grace, and grace always enables the freedom of choice. How many people were baptized as babies and decided to leave?
This is somewhat off topic from your response, but I think it is fitting.
What is the source of your Rights? The government? I think not.
I'm assuming you're a geek, which means you build your own computers. You own your own hardware and you run Linux. So, since you made them, you are the one who chooses what software runs on your box and what doesn't. Personally, I don't give Microsoft the right to have their code run on my boxes.
Now, lets apply this to us. Who created you? Your parents... They helped. Who created them? Grandparents... They helped. Keep going back, at some point there has to be a one who is uncreated, and saying this is all an accident is no good because accidents are always unintended results to something that was intended. A car accident is the unintended result of trying to get somewhere. Accidents only happen when there is a larger aim that is diverted. So, there has to be a God, and you have to be the result in some way of this God.
If your computer starts running software you don't want it to, you remove the software, and if it persists, you wipe the hard drive and start fresh. Just like you have your computer for some purpose, God has created each of us for some purpose, and that purpose is to be like Him! Now, we suffer, and it sucks, but this is our greatest opportunity, because when we suffer, we have the opportunity to have mercy and forgive, and when we have mercy and forgive, we are living up to the Image and Likeness of God that He created us in. For as much as suffering sucks, it is a great gift, because it enables us to become more like our Maker, who is Himself infinitely merciful.
Papal infallibility extends to the previous popes as well, so Benedict XVI can't change anything a previous pope has solemnly declared, nor would he in this case.
So, unless you want to claim to have invented sex, which I seriously doubt you're going to, you don't have the authority to put claims on what is permissible and what isn't. Now, the pope didn't invent it either, but the Pope does speak for the one who *did* invent it.
It doesn't take a geek to see that Sex has the purpose of making more people, nor does it take a geek to see that sex makes people desire to have the stable sort of relationship that would well foster taking care of those more people who are made. Now, when you separate sex from procreation, you separate it from the other things as well and the result is brokenness for the people who abuse it and the people who result from that abuse. Contraception, masturbation, homosexual sex, sex outside of marriage... ALL of these are wrong because they take something that is supposed to be a gift of self for the good of the other (for the sake of creating another) and make it all about self-gratification.
Nobody is perfect at this, but it is very important to at least see Love as a gift of self for the good of the other and strive for it as best as one can once one sees it.
I think the word you're looking for is "mystery". Now, there are clearly defined points of departure, but the exact nature of what is going on in its fullness is beyond language to describe and the mind (of itself) to grasp. The best example is how God can be a Trinity (Three persons, one being). The head doesn't readily wrap itself around that, but there is more to it than "the Pope said so".
Also, the Immaculate Conception is how Mary was conceived without sin, so that she could be the new Eve, undefiled. Now, when Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and Christ was conceived, this too was a miracle. The mystery of it isn't how it happened, but that it happened at all, and how that relates to us in the here and now.
As someone who has experienced miracles up close and personal, I care more about what God is saying through the miracle than about how it happened. Now, as a scientist and a geek, I take a really darn close look at the how of it, but that is because I am a scientist and a geek. At the end of the day, how they have happened is interesting, but they don't impact how I live my life nearly as much as what God says through the miracle.
Catholic teaching holds that life is good, and Human life is in the image of our creator in a unique way. This includes everything from how we come into being, through how we live, to how we die. The problem lies in the separation of the conjugal act from procreation, which is something that John Paul II harped on to no end... people just didn't get it.
As far as those who are the result of artificial insemination (or other fertility aids), they're not tainted. They're just as baptizable as anyone else, and their offspring as well.
The deeper understanding behind this is that sex isn't supposed an action of gratification for self, but it is a gift of self for the good of the other, and sex is such a profound gift of self (in the body) that through a direct act of God, it has the potential to create another. The ability to be a co-worker with God in His work of creation is a great gift; one that we need to use as is intended. For example, I don't think you would be too happy if you gave one of your kids a hammer as a gift and they decided to pound on the dog and not nails.
As a Catholic Geek who is big into both (I am studying to be a priest and I write software that will serve me as a Priest), it is important to understand what is going on, the parallels to the Borg collective and what isn't parallel. In the case of the Borg collective, it is a community dedicated to unity through compulsive slavery. The difference is that when we chant our prayers in unison, we are affirming what we have individually chosen to believe (which ought to be in unison with every other Catholic). It is a large organization, but not one based on slavery (like the Borg) but one based on a personal choice. I personally thing that chanting psalms in community is awesome.
Mass Margins are really tight when a mission is in the planning phase... there are times when a mission can have a follow on mission (e.g. Mars Global Surveyor had a relay antenna so that it could relay data while in orbit around Mars), but for the most part, every part of the mission is tailored specifically for the task at hand. Secondary missions are just that, an after-thought of what could be done with the hardware that is on board. Fortunately, the scientists are creative enough to explore this and come up with some really good ideas on how to use the on board equipment for solid science.
The ability to reuse a spacecraft like this is great. This is of particular interest to the slashdot community because it is a sweet hack to take seven year old hardware that was designed for a specific mission and with whatever delta-v margin that is left over from the primary mission run a secondary mission. What is more is that we know that these are proven spacecraft that have been running nominally for a long time, so instead of 100% of the cost of a new mission that only may or may not fulfill the science mission, it is 15% of the cost for a known-good spacecraft that is as close to guaranteed to bring back good science.
Maybe I am one of a very small minority on slashdot who gets excited about this stuff...
I doubt we will see a drop in capacity at this point. Everyone who wants a gmail account has had it for at least a year now, so I don't think many will come who haven't come yet.
I am a Thomist, and Thomism has a view that is closer to Aristotle's, but not without some Platonic influence. I'm glad to see you did some homework:)
The cow soul doesn't do anything except inform the matter of a cow, so when the cow is gone, so too is the cow soul. Now, the human soul is different, as the human soul is capable of immaterial operations, e.g., coming to some notion of God. The human soul doesn't have the power to inform a cow body.
I don't know about you, but my cat seems to have a fair amount of free choice. Coming when called, or not coming when called isn't the sort of free choice I am talking about. The free choice I am talking about is the choice to actualize the fullness of my potential. I can choose to act less than human, or I can choose to act fully human. Now, to talk about what it means to be fully human would require some measure of theology (the natural sort is good enough), but that is a debate that is best left for later.
When I call her, sometimes she chooses to come and sometimes she doesn't. Yeah, your cat can't choose to act like a cat or to not act like a cat. Your cat is a cat, and cats are fickle. Sounds to me like she is fully actualizing her cat potential.
Saying that you can't find homeostasis in a chicken is like saying you can't find the flight in a duck. It's not a noun, it's a verb. It's what living things do that dead things don't. Sounds like you got my point.
And we can watch cells do it in the lab. Remember that there is always more than what meets the eye. Everything you see is material, and "seeing" is your mind operating on the form.
we found what does that and it's mostly proteins. And those proteins are formed just right to do their job within those greater tasks.
The soul doesn't use or consume anything, it simply exists in informing the matter. When the animal dies, the body is no longer informed, and homeostasis stops.
Homeostasis is an excellent answer, precisely because it indicates the presence of a non-material animating principle. The point of my question was to ask for a material cause, and homeostasis (at least as I understand you stating it) is notably immaterial. Homeostasis is one of the functions of the soul.
Think; we looked all over the chicken, but couldn't find the homeostasis.
If a human soul was in a cows body, how could you tell? Clearly you don't understand... This question is like asking, "What if a table had the form of a chair?" Tables aren't chairs and chairs aren't tables.
Secondly, Aristotle talked about something called act and potency. Act is something that is actualized, and potency is the possibility for something to be actualized. What is important is that people (as per their form... there are always exceptions) have the potency to bury the dead or plan for the future of their children. Whether or not they actualize it is their choice. In fact, humans are also unique in that they have the free choice to either actualize their potential or not, but I am digressing...
it didn't take right the first time, or the second time.... stupid HTML tags...
How do you know that cows aren't wondering that? Cows don't bury their dead, and neither do dolphins. Sure they communicate with each other and have an animal form of community, but the mother dolphin doesn't plan for the child dolphin's future. These things don't happen without an immaterial soul. You're right that I can't get into the subjective experience of a cow or a dolphin to say for sure, but being is revealed in action, and they sure don't act like they have immaterial souls.
how do you know that a cow's life wasn't intended by God to be the comfortable life for reincarnated human souls after living a good life? Reincarnation as a different creature is metaphysically impossible. The matter that my soul informs is human, and my soul is a custom fit for the human being. In other words, a human soul doesn't fit in a cow body, only a cow soul fits in a cow body. In fact, it is only because it is a cow soul that informs a cow body that we can recognize it as a cow.
You think you know all the answers, but you're just as wrong as everyone else. I don't know all the answers, I just understand the questions.
it didn't take right the first time...
How do you know that cows aren't wondering that? Cows don't bury their dead, and neither do dolphins. Sure they communicate with each other and have an animal form of community, but the mother dolphin doesn't plan for the child dolphin's future. These things don't happen without an immaterial soul. You're right that I can't get into the subjective experience of a cow or a dolphin to say for sure, but being is revealed in action, and they sure don't act like they have immaterial souls.
how do you know that a cow's life wasn't intended by God to be the comfortable life for reincarnated human souls after living a good life? You think you know all the answers, but you're just as wrong as everyone else. I don't know all the answers, I just understand the questions.
How do you know that cows aren't wondering that? Cows don't bury their dead, and neither do dolphins. Sure they communicate with each other and have an animal form of community, but the mother dolphin doesn't plan for the child dolphin's future. These things don't happen without an immaterial soul. You're right that I can't get into the subjective experience of a cow or a dolphin to say for sure, but being is revealed in action, and they sure don't act like they have immaterial souls.
how do you know that a cow's life wasn't intended by God to be the comfortable life for reincarnated human souls after living a good life? You think you know all the answers, but you're just as wrong as everyone else. I don't know all the answers, I just understand the questions.
Slashdot Mirror
as I said sex makes people desire to have the stable sort of relationship that would well foster taking care of those more people who are made.
This is exactly why the good feeling is there, to unite the husband and wife.
Sight returned to the blind. Light coming from a hole in a consecrated host. I'm not making this stuff up. If you don't believe me, google incorruptible saints or eucharistic miracles. Might surprise you.
I would say that it is a verifiable fact that sin is bad, and because of experiences I have had, I would also say that it is a verifiable fact that confirmation helps people to sin less. When I was confirmed, I was going on faith, but faith is less believing in something unseen, but holding to what is known through hearing.
Amongst my friends in High School, I was the only Catholic. Only one of my parents was/is Catholic, and my mom wasn't pushing me at all. I really made my decision on my own.
Like all mathematicians who believe that 1 + 1 = 2 or all software developers thinking that memory leaks are a bad thing?
I was just over a year old.
I was a Sophomore in High School when I was confirmed, and it was in line with my desire at that point. Also, Baptism gives grace, and grace always enables the freedom of choice. How many people were baptized as babies and decided to leave?
The greatest evidence that the God of Abraham exists lies in the fact that I don't see Hittites or Jebusites or Perizites wandering around New York.
This is somewhat off topic from your response, but I think it is fitting.
What is the source of your Rights? The government? I think not.
I'm assuming you're a geek, which means you build your own computers. You own your own hardware and you run Linux. So, since you made them, you are the one who chooses what software runs on your box and what doesn't. Personally, I don't give Microsoft the right to have their code run on my boxes.
Now, lets apply this to us. Who created you? Your parents... They helped. Who created them? Grandparents... They helped. Keep going back, at some point there has to be a one who is uncreated, and saying this is all an accident is no good because accidents are always unintended results to something that was intended. A car accident is the unintended result of trying to get somewhere. Accidents only happen when there is a larger aim that is diverted. So, there has to be a God, and you have to be the result in some way of this God.
If your computer starts running software you don't want it to, you remove the software, and if it persists, you wipe the hard drive and start fresh. Just like you have your computer for some purpose, God has created each of us for some purpose, and that purpose is to be like Him! Now, we suffer, and it sucks, but this is our greatest opportunity, because when we suffer, we have the opportunity to have mercy and forgive, and when we have mercy and forgive, we are living up to the Image and Likeness of God that He created us in. For as much as suffering sucks, it is a great gift, because it enables us to become more like our Maker, who is Himself infinitely merciful.
Papal infallibility extends to the previous popes as well, so Benedict XVI can't change anything a previous pope has solemnly declared, nor would he in this case.
So, unless you want to claim to have invented sex, which I seriously doubt you're going to, you don't have the authority to put claims on what is permissible and what isn't. Now, the pope didn't invent it either, but the Pope does speak for the one who *did* invent it.
It doesn't take a geek to see that Sex has the purpose of making more people, nor does it take a geek to see that sex makes people desire to have the stable sort of relationship that would well foster taking care of those more people who are made. Now, when you separate sex from procreation, you separate it from the other things as well and the result is brokenness for the people who abuse it and the people who result from that abuse. Contraception, masturbation, homosexual sex, sex outside of marriage... ALL of these are wrong because they take something that is supposed to be a gift of self for the good of the other (for the sake of creating another) and make it all about self-gratification.
Nobody is perfect at this, but it is very important to at least see Love as a gift of self for the good of the other and strive for it as best as one can once one sees it.
I taught religion in a Catholic Grade School...
I think the word you're looking for is "mystery". Now, there are clearly defined points of departure, but the exact nature of what is going on in its fullness is beyond language to describe and the mind (of itself) to grasp. The best example is how God can be a Trinity (Three persons, one being). The head doesn't readily wrap itself around that, but there is more to it than "the Pope said so".
Also, the Immaculate Conception is how Mary was conceived without sin, so that she could be the new Eve, undefiled. Now, when Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and Christ was conceived, this too was a miracle. The mystery of it isn't how it happened, but that it happened at all, and how that relates to us in the here and now.
As someone who has experienced miracles up close and personal, I care more about what God is saying through the miracle than about how it happened. Now, as a scientist and a geek, I take a really darn close look at the how of it, but that is because I am a scientist and a geek. At the end of the day, how they have happened is interesting, but they don't impact how I live my life nearly as much as what God says through the miracle.
Since nobody has answered your questions...
Catholic teaching holds that life is good, and Human life is in the image of our creator in a unique way. This includes everything from how we come into being, through how we live, to how we die. The problem lies in the separation of the conjugal act from procreation, which is something that John Paul II harped on to no end... people just didn't get it.
As far as those who are the result of artificial insemination (or other fertility aids), they're not tainted. They're just as baptizable as anyone else, and their offspring as well.
The deeper understanding behind this is that sex isn't supposed an action of gratification for self, but it is a gift of self for the good of the other, and sex is such a profound gift of self (in the body) that through a direct act of God, it has the potential to create another. The ability to be a co-worker with God in His work of creation is a great gift; one that we need to use as is intended. For example, I don't think you would be too happy if you gave one of your kids a hammer as a gift and they decided to pound on the dog and not nails.
As a Catholic Geek who is big into both (I am studying to be a priest and I write software that will serve me as a Priest), it is important to understand what is going on, the parallels to the Borg collective and what isn't parallel. In the case of the Borg collective, it is a community dedicated to unity through compulsive slavery. The difference is that when we chant our prayers in unison, we are affirming what we have individually chosen to believe (which ought to be in unison with every other Catholic). It is a large organization, but not one based on slavery (like the Borg) but one based on a personal choice. I personally thing that chanting psalms in community is awesome.
Mass Margins are really tight when a mission is in the planning phase... there are times when a mission can have a follow on mission (e.g. Mars Global Surveyor had a relay antenna so that it could relay data while in orbit around Mars), but for the most part, every part of the mission is tailored specifically for the task at hand. Secondary missions are just that, an after-thought of what could be done with the hardware that is on board. Fortunately, the scientists are creative enough to explore this and come up with some really good ideas on how to use the on board equipment for solid science.
The ability to reuse a spacecraft like this is great. This is of particular interest to the slashdot community because it is a sweet hack to take seven year old hardware that was designed for a specific mission and with whatever delta-v margin that is left over from the primary mission run a secondary mission. What is more is that we know that these are proven spacecraft that have been running nominally for a long time, so instead of 100% of the cost of a new mission that only may or may not fulfill the science mission, it is 15% of the cost for a known-good spacecraft that is as close to guaranteed to bring back good science.
Maybe I am one of a very small minority on slashdot who gets excited about this stuff...
I'll weigh in on this long chain attempt.
I doubt we will see a drop in capacity at this point. Everyone who wants a gmail account has had it for at least a year now, so I don't think many will come who haven't come yet.
Seeing this modded offtopic made me laugh incredibly painfully hard. I would say "mod parent up" but that would defeat the humor of the post.
yep here[penny-arcade]
The cow soul doesn't do anything except inform the matter of a cow, so when the cow is gone, so too is the cow soul. Now, the human soul is different, as the human soul is capable of immaterial operations, e.g., coming to some notion of God. The human soul doesn't have the power to inform a cow body. I don't know about you, but my cat seems to have a fair amount of free choice. Coming when called, or not coming when called isn't the sort of free choice I am talking about. The free choice I am talking about is the choice to actualize the fullness of my potential. I can choose to act less than human, or I can choose to act fully human. Now, to talk about what it means to be fully human would require some measure of theology (the natural sort is good enough), but that is a debate that is best left for later. When I call her, sometimes she chooses to come and sometimes she doesn't. Yeah, your cat can't choose to act like a cat or to not act like a cat. Your cat is a cat, and cats are fickle. Sounds to me like she is fully actualizing her cat potential.
The soul doesn't use or consume anything, it simply exists in informing the matter. When the animal dies, the body is no longer informed, and homeostasis stops.
Homeostasis is an excellent answer, precisely because it indicates the presence of a non-material animating principle. The point of my question was to ask for a material cause, and homeostasis (at least as I understand you stating it) is notably immaterial. Homeostasis is one of the functions of the soul.
Think; we looked all over the chicken, but couldn't find the homeostasis.
Secondly, Aristotle talked about something called act and potency. Act is something that is actualized, and potency is the possibility for something to be actualized. What is important is that people (as per their form... there are always exceptions) have the potency to bury the dead or plan for the future of their children. Whether or not they actualize it is their choice. In fact, humans are also unique in that they have the free choice to either actualize their potential or not, but I am digressing...