WHY WHICH BRAND OF SELF DRIVING CAR YOU BUY MATTERS

You Catholic faith has a lot to do with what self driving car you buy in the future.

Maybe ten years from now you are happily driving (well, riding) along, drinking you coffee and finishing up some last minute things as your car speedily scoots you along to your destination.  All of a sudden and in a way that could not be predicted, three people tumble into the street in your path: an elderly man, a pregnant woman and a well dressed middle aged guy.  There is nothing that can be done!  The car will have to hit one of these people while you drink your coffee or veer off of a cliff killing you, possibly some woodland creatures and possibly cause some pollution to the environment.

The decision is not made in a vacuum.  A computer does not make this decision.  All of the input comes from human beings and somewhere along the line someone programed a decision as to who will be sacrificed in the computer’s brain.  As it turns out the old man is a great senator, the woman would go on to be a terrible mother causing her child to be a terrorist and the well dressed man was on a job interview, that he didn’t get, and will spend the next 30 years living for free in his mother’s basement playing video games.  Does this matter?

Who gets to decide who gets hit?  Are you still morally culpable in any way?  What if you have to decide, before you buy the car, what moral standards you will use.

You new car comes with your choice of:

Traditional Judeo/Christian ethics

Revised Judeo/Christian ethics for the modern person

Atheist

non-denominational

Buddhist

Utilitarianism

AND MANY MORE!  YOU CHOOSE!

Often the Catholic Church is accused of being anti-science (an illusion of which an honest historian will relieve you.)  Often the Church is just saying, “This is new territory and we should think about the moral implications before blindly going forward and ending up someplace we don’t want to be.”  Science, as is its current nature, wants to march on with what it can do (rather than, sometimes, what it should do) and wants to police itself (which we see how well that turned out in the Catholic hierarchy.)  

Go science!  Go faith!  Hand in hand we can do much good together.

MOVE ONE SPACE, MOVE ONE SPACE

Has humankind advanced?

 

It depends upon that which you are measuring.

 

Scientifically are we advanced?  By leaps and bounds.  Morally, ethically, civilly have we improved?  There is much to debate.

 

The 19^th and 20^th century are often considered the bloodiest ever.  I remember hearing in grade school the evil Romans used to toss their deformed babies over a cliff.  Today we regularly end the life of our perfectly healthy children in the womb.  But that we still have a strong call for abortions in the first place is a sign that things are terribly wrong. 

 

I used to chuckle superiorly about the silly pioneers who used to throw their trash right out of their windows surrounding themselves in filth.  But we pollute ourselves no less and in fact much more.  Genocide still occurs. One third of the world is dying from hunger while another third dies from over eating.  The Christian Church (a place of unity in Christ) is fractured and we can no longer enter Canada, our friendly neighbor to the north, without a passport and a purpose.  (I went recently just to pop over and see the falls and MAYBE spend the night.  Wrong answer.  I was detained at the boarder for an hour.  Our friendly neighbor is now the grumpy guy with the cane who wants you to stay off of his lawn.)

 

This is not to depress but to point out something important.  Our progress as a species should not be based upon the tricks that we can do.  It should be about where our minds and hearts as a people are.  Until we advance in love, peace, and unity, we haven’t really advanced at all.  We have simply learned new tricks and made ourselves feel better.

 

That is the importance of our faith.  Every week we remind ourselves of this and strive to be better, to fess up when we mess up, and do our best to make amends.  To remind ourselves that it is not enough to be able to do new tricks but to stop and think if the new trick is worth doing.  Medical advances don’t mean much if it is not accompanied by compassion.  We can’t save someone we think “worth it” while tossing those we don’t want over a cliff.  There is no advancement there. 

 

Even more basically: it reminds us that there IS something toward which we may progress.  If this is all an accident of moving particles, then there is no real goal to reach.  But we say that there is an ideal on which to keep our eye.  This is our hope for a better more advanced world.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: AANotes: LUMEN FIDEI: KNOCK OFF PAGANS

In general I am opposed to CliffsNotes versions of things that we are “supposed” to read.  But it is also understandable that after a day at work, home chores and responsibilities, and with the one hour you have to relax, you probably are not going to cozy up with a Church encyclical for some satiating reading.  So for the next few weeks on Friday Potpourri we will have the AANotes on Lumen Fidei, our Popes encyclical addressed to all the faithful, so that you will at least have a decent idea on what our pontiff wishes to know though the fullness of what is being said can only be grasped by reading it.

 

Here is the main gist of the entire preface: 

 

The faith is a light for all of humanity to help us understand who we are, how we are supposed to live, to give us worth, dignity, direction, and hope for the future.  G. K. Chesterton talks about the pagan world (so does Francis here though he doesn’t mention my buddy G. K.) and how it gave way to the Christian world.  It lacked that ultimate light for which it strove.  Nobody “has ever died for his faith in the sun” wrote St. Justin Martyr.  Still, true paganism (unlike today’s knock off brand of it) had a very strict moral code, grave ideas of honor and respect and sacrifice, but it could not carry the weight, need, and the divine spark of the human person.  That is why it passed when Christianity came on the scene.  That is why to return to paganism is not a cure especially when used by those who employ it with the grave misunderstanding that it provides a framework for engaging in any human endeavor the particular individual wants license to engage in.  That was NOT the paganism of old.

 

We know that Western culture is enamored with itself.  Like so many past generations it is self impressed with its technological advances, it growing collection of facts, and its television reruns, and so has figured it has now arrived, can work out life on its own, and can relinquish faith.  In fact, as it has so many times in the past, it now sees faith as darkness, a step backward, full of emotionalism and superstition.

 

But the experiment has once again failed.  Lost as society is, it has even lost its nerve to say anything is true.  The idea of the dignity and worth of man is in free fall and the ability to say for sure what is good and what is evil is escaping us. 

 

Because of this there is a great need for the light of faith to help inform us who we are, and, in knowing who we are, how we are to live in order to be most fully and healthily human and what is our ultimate end and how can we get there.  We are aware that faith can be a fragile thing and that we once again must nourish and promote it like a grape vine lest it be overcome by weeds and fail to produce fruit.

 

That’s the set up largely in my own words.  We just went through two and half pages of small, single spaced document.  We’ll start the first chapter next week.

WHO ARE YOU WHEN A MACHINE TAKES YOUR JOB?

So . . .

 

Let’s assume that yesterday’s video was mostly on the spot.  For almost 50% of everybody working now there will not be a job in the foreseeable future because there will be a machine and/or computer that will do the job more quickly, more accurately, more abundantly, less expensively, and untiringly.  Where does that leave you Mr. and Mrs. Wrong Side of the 50% line?

 

We gain so much of our self understanding and our self worth by having something to do.  Questions about this usually are at the top of the list when speaking with somebody you just met and you are looking for ways to connect. 

 

“So, what do you do for a living?”

 

We are worthy because we are useful it seems.  Those who’s right to live are most in jeopardy in society are those who can’t “do.”  For example, yesterday’s post of Mr. Dawkins who stated that it is immoral for women who have a Down Syndrome Baby not to abort.  Why?  Because, in his eyes, they are not useful.  And so it is with the elderly, persons with disabilities, with diminished brain capacity, who are yet to be born . . .  These people are in danger of not being useful enough for society. 

 

Now dump into the mix all those who are, through no fault of their own, now unemployable.  (Scary if you were already on this list and now there is a huge group of people dumped on top of you pushing even further down.)  It seems to me that there is going to be crisis of dignity.  Who am I?  How do I find my self worth?  What does it mean to be human?  How do I matter?

 

I think it will be the Catholic Church in particular who will come to the aid of mankind.  Though we do talk about the dignity of work, we are not defined by our work nor do we find our dignity because we can and do work.

 

When are you no longer responsible for loving a person?  Everybody loves a baby.  We say that a baby is adopted into the family of God at baptism.  Is that when they become lovable?  Of course not.  Is it at birth?  Some would argue so.  How about when the baby is still in the womb?  The matter gets murky for some here.  Yet we read in Scripture, “Before you were knit together in your mother’s womb I knew you.”  We were known and loved even before our conception extending our dignity back to creation.  So what about at the other end?  Do we become less the children of God as we become less able bodied?  The rich and poor, the able and the disabled, the young and the old have been given a place to go.  Each retains their dignity as a human being because they are destined for eternal life.  We were loved since the beginning of time and for all time.  The work that you do here will all pass away.  Our thoughts no matter how brilliant will be forgotten.  Some day our solar system will simply cease to be.  What of all that work you did?  “Vanity of vanities says Qoheleth!”  The only redeeming part of work is that it assists you and others into heaven. 

 

There is a man that I met about whom I wrote once before who owns a car lot.  “You know what I do for a living?” he once asked.  Sell cars was not the answer.  “I provide an opportunity for people to work so that they can raise their families in security.  That is what I do for a living.”  My chiropractor sees his job as helping others (particularly priests) minister and do their jobs better.  It is not simply about making money or being famous both birds with wings.

 

At the end of time, you as a human being will still exists and in fact, be fulfilling the role for which you were designed which shall bring you fulfillment and joy.  “Not so machines, not so.  For they like winnowed chaff shall be driven away by the wind.”  No matter how clever a machine will be, it has no purpose in life but to serve man.  When it becomes useless it is not immoral to shut it down because it has not dignity other than how it can serve us.  Or when the universe come to an end, all machines will simply cease to exist.  All of its labor pointless.  There will be no one to remember, appreciate, record, or welcome it into a new existence.

 

That is not the case for you.  Your dignity is in that you were designed to be loved, you are loved, and you will be welcomed lovingly into that place where being human makes most sense – even more so than here whether you were considered worthy or not on earth.  Mr. Dawkins would have you believe you are not worth more than a how good a machine you are.  One universe is livable even if we can’t work, the other unbearable, violent, brutish, and short.

 

It is this belief we have as Catholics that makes us stand virtually alone as a body in fighting for the rights of the unborn.  In the future, it may be this belief that tells people who are no longer able to work that they are still lovable, worthwhile human beings because they were made so by a Father who loves them and is preparing place for them.

WITH THIS LUGNUT

Okay, I did NOT see this one coming.

 

Though I should have.

 

I remember having the discussion that if the definition of marriage was changed from its ancient understanding that was attached to procreation and family (or even sex for that matter) and base it solely on strong emotional bonds that it would lead to other forms of marriage other than just between two people and being told, “Oh no, that would NEVER happen.”  Well since then we have had the mother who wanted to marry her daughter in order to assist her in raising her daughter.  More recently we have had the case of the three women who married out west and one of them being inseminated in order for triumvirate to raise a family.

 

BUT I WASN’T IMAGINING CREATIVELY ENOUGH!

 

Yesterday (Wednesday) on NPR there was a story about the development of robots.  As they become more complicated and self-sufficient the question was asked at what point will they become “persons.”  The prediction was that their rights would develop over time.  Robots will slowing gain “rights” and eventually be able to sue.  Law suits could be filed not because the owner of a robot was seeking damages to his property but that the robot would be able to sue for violation of (his?) person.  The prediction was that 20 years following the first successful suing by a robot (against a human or another robot was not specified) there will be the first wedding.  (Again, they did not specify if it was between a robot and a person or two robots – but now we see almost anything can go.)

Here is another article on the topic.

 

Which all leads back to the sticking point: Once marriage can mean anything, it ceases to mean anything.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: I TOLD YOU SO

Paragraph 3 of Dei Verbum

 

Do you remember Mike, the young man from Monday diary?  No matter where he looked, he did not see God.  He knew there was not such “thing” as God.  How odd it is then that for the attentive believer, it is difficult to look and not see God.  He reveals a bit of Himself in all of creation just like the artists reveals a bit of himself in his artwork.  He not only reveals Himself in His works, but through His deeds. 

 

Mike will buy anything scientific that such people tell him.  He does not have to see it, taste it, hear it, feel it, or smell it personally, but because scientists tell him that it is so and he trusts them and he “believes” it.  (Thus is he a man of faith and dogma.)  I understand that in theory he could do all the experiments to prove it to himself, though it would take a great many lifetimes. 

 

In a similar way, the Testaments are chuck full of people telling us that God does exist because they (heard Him, touched Him, saw Him . . .).  For some reason, these persons are easy to discount.  Whereas scientists may less likely be discounted, people of faith, in Mike’s world, almost always are.  Anyone before the modern era is considered inferior intellectually and could never recount phenomena accurately.  (What will future generations say of us?  How primitive and barbaric we may seem those in the future!  But are there not truths we can know now?  Can we not know there is more to life than what we can touch, feel, see, taste, and hear?  Is not the universe so much bigger than what we can put at the end of a telescope?)

 

And through this relationship with God, we have been told to expect Savior right from the first moment we needed one beginning with the proto-Gospel of Genesis 3:15 and continually throughout the Old Testament making Christ the only founder of a major religion that was foretold by prophets.

 

As St. Thomas said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

EVERYONE "BELEIVES" IN SOMETHING

I was set to write something completely different and then someone sent me a link to a website that had this statement on it:

 

“Proud, vocal, unapologetic atheist, freethinker and secular humanist. Science teacher. President of northeast Ohio branch of Center for Inquiry. Member of Freedom From Religion Foundation, Cleveland Freethinkers and Cleveland Skeptics.”

 

He is calling for like minded people to get together and talk.  The sessions would be pretty open to, “Anything that is intellectually stimulating and interesting.”  Would that Christians would be so bold. 

 

As a side note, I do find it interesting how similar what they want to do is to Church.  They want community and a gathering.  They will have a set of beliefs with its own set of presuppositions that are as utterly improvable as the faiths they disdain.  There will also be dogma.  Consider the acceptable areas of inquiry being, “intellectually stimulating and interesting.”  Who gets to decide this?  The president?  (a pope – every Church has its version of a pope) or a committee (a curia)?  I am pretty sure that things that I find stimulating and interesting would probably off limits.  But I could be wrong on that.

 

But what are the main differences between this gathering and Church?  Well, yes, of course whether there is a God (or gods) or not.  Though both are seeking community, both are seeking truth, but one is seeking the “how” of the universe, and the other is seeking the “Who.”  One hopes to understand causality (this happened because this happened because this happened), the other on relationship between persons of this world and the Persons of another place.

 

Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about this in his book, “A Philosophy of Judaism” (h/t Adam).  He is describing what each of these groups are looking for when they look at something such as the book of Genesis:

 

“There is, for example, a basic difference in meaning, intention, and them between a scientific theory of the origin of the universe and what the first chapters of the Book of Genesis are trying to convey.  The Book of Genesis does not intend to explain anything; the mystery of the world’s coming into being is in no way made more intelligible by a statement such as, ‘At the beginning God created heaven and earth.’  The Bible and science do not deal with the same problem.  Scientific theory inquires: What is the cause of the universe?  It thinks in the category of causality, and causality conceives of the relationship between a cause and effect. . .  The Bible, on the other hand, conceives of the relationship of the Creator and the universe as a relationship between two essentially different and incomparable entities, and regards creation itself as an event rather than as a process.  Creation, then, is an idea that transcends causality; it tell us how it comes that there is causality at all.  Rather than explaining the world in categories borrowed from nature, it alludes to what made nature possible, namely, an act of the freedom of God.”

 

(There’s a lot there.  Spend some time with that if you have the time.)

 

It takes just as much faith to say that creation just always was than to say that it was created.  But to say that there is an infinite Creator (or at least a Creator Who is outside of time) begins to give an answer.  It also allows for a bigger universe both in terms of the size of existence and the realm of knowing for belief (at least Catholicism) allows for (and developed much of) scientific “belief,” but the discussion group proposed at the beginning of this post does not allow for the opposite.  (I can talk to him, but he cannot countenance me.)  And that creates an incredibly limited universe. 

 

It is also sad.  For taken to its logical conclusion, the type of belief system proposed by the gentleman above leads to the belief that human beings are utterly pointless.  The group, in turn, becomes pointless.  Even the pursuit of knowledge is a chase after the wind.  We are an accident of the universe.  We only exist for ourselves, and when we are dead we cease to exist, when we are extinct there will be no one even to know it, or care, or remember . . . we are entirely without purpose or meaning.  And this leads to a horrible form of morality.  A culture of death.  It becomes about what is best for me because that is all that really matters.

 

And that, to me, sounds neither honest, hopeful, complete, intellectually stimulating, or interesting.

RANT - COUNTER RANT: SOME (WHAT I HOPE IS) MEDIEVAL THINKING

Joe Cullen of Alliance wrote a letter to the editor of the Akron Beacon Journal about guns and the NRA and PUCO, which might be good, but he so incredible annoyed me with his first sentence that I could not read on any further.  It was an unwarranted and ignorant attack on the Church.

 

Here is the sentence in part:  “. . .[it] makes me wonder if we are revisiting the times of Galileo and Pope Urban VIII.  That subject is a fear or hatred of science.”

 

This fallacy is kicked around so often it is thought of in the collective memory as true.  It is like Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” the story of the hunch-backed diabolical king of England that is such a good story that if it isn’t true, it should be.  Yet it is not.  In fact, Richard might have been one of the finest kings ever to sit on the thrown.  But who really cares in the light of such a good and well believed story?

 

So it is with Galileo and the Church.  To begin with, is it not odd that this is practically the only story that pops into anybody’s mind demonstrating a rocky relationship between the Church and science?  How many other monumental stories can you sight from history?  This is not an example of a war between science and faith, this is an example of the exception to the rule. 

 

Further, Galileo did not invent the idea that the sun was the center of our solar system.  It had been well known as a theory for centuries.  Further, a tiny bit of research would have revealed to Mr. Cullum that Galileo did not prove anything.  It was a theory that he put forth as fact that could not be proven by the scientific method.  Yet, despite warnings from his fellow scientists he put the theory forth as fact.  Further, he was wrong in stating that it was fact that the sun was the center of the universe. 

 

Yet still he might have been fine had he remained in the area of science.  Yet he pushed into areas of theology making bold statements using his (only partially correct, un-provable theory) as a means to dictate to Scripture scholars how they must interpret Scripture.  Then after many cautions and (perhaps inadvertently) publically humiliating the pope and alienating the scientific community, he was placed under house arrest under the most generous of circumstances. 

 

Could the whole thing been handled better?  Yes on both sides.  Was it the hatred of science that it is always carted out as demonstrating?  Not even remotely.

 

Far from being hostile to the science, the Church embraces science, has produced great scientists, has supported great science.  From the microscope to the telescope to the Big Band theory (as “invented” by a Jesuit priest) the Church helped invent, fund, support, and teach great science.  It is all there in history, methodically ignored by “historians” and misinformed writers of letters to the editor who try to make a point using false “truths”.

 

One thing that I don’t blame Mr. Cullun for is the title of his letter which was undoubtedly chosen by an equally misinformed editor.  “Medieval Thinking”  Not to say that the Medieval period was all a piece of cake, it had some serious problems.  But it was not all the vacuous black hole of human intellegence that light weight historians like to believe (and teach) that it was.  From this period we have the birth of universities, hospitals, modern forms of government, unparalleled opportunities for women to be educated and placed in positions of power (through the Church).  Architecture flourished.  Mathematics and philosophy and the intellectual life in general made great strides.  Countries were brought under leadership making crime and violence in a unified Christendom less of a threat.  Art takes on new importance. 

 

It is easy to look back on an age and point out all the bad aspects of it.  One can only guess how we will be viewed: the bloodiest centuries ever, wars, mass shootings, abortion, pollution, the highest ever incarceration rate, the suppression of religion, one third of the world starving and one third of the world eating itself to death, the baseness of modern entertainment . . . the list could go on and on.  So to use the term “Medieval” as a derogatory word is both pointless and misleading.  One could come up with a very plausible argument that the editor disagrees with the writer of the article sighting that he believes the Galilean controversy was enlightened.

 

(Can you tell I’ve been brooding about this for two days?)

 

The irony here is that Mr. Cullun and the paper did exactly what Galileo did (and I fulfilled the role of the pope.)  They state things as fact, based on faulty information, when they could have done so much good.  And I felt I had to set the record straight.  I would not, however place them under house arrest, I would take their pens away until they attended a middle school history course.

 Maybe they could start here.

IMAGINE THAT

A study from the University of California states that material wealth cannot buy happiness and that happiness cannot be found, for long anyway, in material goods. If one has money, spending it on experiences that lift the soul (my words, not theirs) such as concerts and education brings about some amount of happiness. Delayed satisfaction is also a good area to invest for happiness. Giving money and gifts to others, building bonds and community is an ideal way to use one’s money and receive back a certain amount of happiness in this world.

Now we know! I’ve always wondered and now the mystery of the universe is unveiled!

Now that I’ve got the sarcasm out of my system, the truly good part of this finding is this: faith and science should walk hand in hand. They are both seeking truth. When one is out of sync with the other then one needs to look more deeply into the matter. God made man and there is a way in which he thrives and others in which he does not. Faith and science are not competitors, they are pillars of the same objective.

TWO SIDES OF A COIN?

 Religion starts wars.

Science feeds people.

Actually I understand the mindset. If someone inside or outside the belief system is not well educated this can seem, sadly, very true. But since this is a blog for happy Catholics, let us take the opposite in order to understand why someone would believe the statements above.

There is no proof that smoking is bad for you. Margarine is much better for you than butter. You need 8 glasses of water, two glasses of milk, and glass each of orange juice, coffee, and wine each day. Leaches are good for what ails you. The world will run out of food by the year 2000. Y2K.

People who eschew faith for science because it is fact based and provable (unlike religion) have to face such little scandals. (I am positive we are blindly in the middle of any number of them at this current moment only to be revealed at a later, more enlightened – or less enlightened – date.) Many excuses may be made – very legitimate excuses. Faulty science may be at fault. People manipulating data in order to promote some agenda may be at fault. Societal prejudice may be at fault. Any number of things may mar the glory of true science.

These are not little matters. They sway national and international policies. They dictate how we treat our bodies and the bodies of those in our care. They determine how we interact with the environment and so forth. When science is wrong it does an incredible amount of damage. This causes many to read the latest breakthroughs in science in the newspaper with a role of the eyes and wait and see mentality. There is a reason that there is a global warming debate. If science was always correct (as it gets to the masses anyway) everybody would have just gone, “O dear! Let’s do something about this!”

The counter is that science is often manipulated or performed by poorly trained or influenced persons claiming to be scientists. This is true. Science at its best is a great gift to man. When done properly it does magnificent things for us. But the persons reading about the latest breakthrough over his breakfast cereal has no way of determining if coffee is actually good for you now.

Now imagine what a science minded person has to face when confronted with Christianity. How do I know what constitutes true faith and what is practiced by poorly educated preachers? How can I put my faith in Christianity when hear one moment that homosexual activity can either cast you into hell or make you a bishop? You worry about that stuff I am going to go try to find ways to feed more people.

It is good to be aware of this conundrum. It is difficult to overcome. We believe that it is not science versus religion – an and/or proposition. They need to be united as two pillars. When they go their separate ways something is wrong either in one of the camps. They should work together to inform us how to be better human beings, how to live in our world, how to understand our creator.

HATFIELDS AND THE MACOYS

Our secretary had an egg for lunch the other day.

“Did you hear the good news?” she asked, “Science now says that we can have an egg a day!”

What you are about to read may sound like a rip on science but it is not. It is just brought up in order to make a point.

Because of science my Mother started buying oleo because science said it was better for you. Later they said it was not. In fact, it was one of the worst dietary things you could put in your body.

The eleven glasses of water we were supposed to drink a day? It could potentially kill you.

The various predictions of the end of the world in our time due to over population and lack of food – well, I’m still here. And my computer is still working after Y2K to boot.

Diet pop may now harm you BUT we should start drinking wine and eating dark chocolate now.

The food pyramid that we learned in grade school is gone replaced by something else.

Now if you were to present these ideas (and many more) to a scientist and say, “This is why I am having difficulties giving myself over completely to science,” he might reply, “You have to understand what is going on. Sometimes there is just bad science going on by scientists who are not so good. Sometimes companies manipulate science in order to sell things such as the tobacco industry hiring scientists to say that there was no scientific evidence that smoking was bad for your health. There are fads in science also that just need to work through and get out such “quality time” with your kids being even better than just wasting time with your kids. It does not diminish true science however. True science brings us to truth and benefits all of humankind. It was faulty science that said we would all be well into starving by now but it was also science that prevented us from starving.”

I would agree.

But now reverse it. Imagine a scientist pointing out all of the damage that people have done in the name of religion. It would be just as easy if not easier to come up with a list. We might say to him, “You have to understand what is going on. Sometimes there are just bad Christians preaching religion that is not so good. Sometimes pastors will manipulate people with religion to get you to donate money to expand their ministry. There are fads in religion that just need to work through and get out such as felt banners. It does not diminish religion however. True faith brings us to truth and benefits all of humankind. It was faulty religion that predicted the end of the world at various times but it was also religion that helped see people through those times.

Science and religion both have their public tasks cut out for them though science seems to have an upper hand in public relations at the moment. But it should always be that: Science AND religion working at their best to bring us to truth – and this is one of the things that I love about the Catholic Church that it does respect science as much as it does.

RANT - COUNTER RANT: THOSE PESKY STRAW MEN AGAIN

Every time the Church appears in the paper it requires faithful members of the Church to hold their collective breath. Is this false, mostly false, misleading, mostly true, absolutely true, and is it good or damaging and if so did we do it to ourselves? Nothing hurts more than damaging, absolutely true and we did to ourselves. And this last scenario happens often enough that you wouldn’t think that any false or misleading scenarios would need to be invented but they are.

Appearing last week in the Cleveland Plain Dealer was an editorial that appeared in the Los Angeles Times written by Michael Kinsley concerning John Paul II’s beatification this coming May. Most of the article is the kind of writing that his author likes to see in secular media. I had no idea of he was for it or against it through most of the reading. There was a healthy balance between a positive an accurate reporting of facts, the Church’s perspective, and a healthy asking of questions that I would expect of a paper that does not purport to be Catholic or a proclaimed defender of the faith.

Then one hits the last quarter of the article and it falls apart. Using techniques reminiscent of 1970’s values clarification, a misleading proposition is presented with implied solutions that leaves the reader siding with the author in a, “of course I couldn’t possibly accept the other position” stance. Limit the possible answers to my good one and the terrible one that I assign to my opponent and I win followers. A sneaky, disingenuous, and unhelpful technique.

A quick background: A nun was miraculously cured of Parkinson’s disease, a malady shared by both the author of the article and John Paul II. The cure was attributed to intercessory prayer made through JPII. The first question, one that is asked in every high school religion class, is why doesn’t JPII or God just eliminate Parkinson’s disease all together. This is a fair enough question and worthy of theological discussion. Nobody has the definitive answer to this question though I think C. S. Lewis made an excellent shot at tackling it in his book, “The Problems of Pain.”

But then Kinsley starts to go off course. The first false statement he makes is that the Church opposes stem cell research. Not true. It does however oppose embryonic stem cell research. It is clear he does not think there is a person in the early stages of human life. “They are not fetuses; they are clumps of a few dozen cells.” To his credit however he does add, “Of course none of this matters if you believe they are full human beings like you and me.”

Finally we get to end of the article and the part that wrinkles my liturgical underwear. (“Finally” I hear you saying.) Here is his statement: “The famous test of belief goes something like this: Suppose there was a fire destroying your house and you had the choice of rescuing either one real 1-year-old baby or two test tubes containing an embryo each. Would you really go for the test tubes and let the baby die?”

The implication is a) embryonic research really does show potential for curing anything (it hasn’t) and b) that to slavishly follow Catholic teaching means that you absolutely must rescue the test tube humans and not the 1-year-old. So let’s offer a similarly ridiculous scenario back. You are able to go back in time to the Circus Maximus and three unidentified men are being fed to the lions and you, somehow, have the ability to rescue either one man who is running and screaming away from the lion or the two other men who are unconscious. You have no idea if the two unconscious men will live or not, they will feel no pain, they are not as in immediate danger as the lion is chasing the conscious one (and a one year old is breathing smoke – not so a person in a test tube) and since they would survive longer in the situation in which they were placed, they are not immediately suffering, we do not know if they will survive already, and there is the slimmest chance that they could be rescued yet, who would not go for the man running from the claws of the lion or the child breathing in smoke? (Similarly would we be able to get the test tubes to a place that would preserve them in time? I have no idea how to preserve rescue or preserve them. I do know how to save a one year old and make sure that he is Okay.) NOBODY is less or more worthy to be saved - but one senario seems to have the best chance of succeeding with the most people.

This may not be the best answer (it most likely isn't) and there are probably moral philosophers out there cringing at these words. This was the best I could come up with fifteen minutes on my vacation, but the point is that there are other options (don't accept the one falsely assigned to you) - we do not need anyone assigning a false absolute position to the Church (a straw man) and then pointing out how ridiculous that (false) assertion is.

Manipulating emotions fails because that does not make the problems or the questions go away. Deal with the facts and grapple for a solution. It is only then that real answers begin to appear.

WHY WE ARE SOMETIMES BUFFALO-ED

An interesting tidbit was in the paper yesterday. An anthropologist named Colin Turnbull took his African guide for a plane ride. Looking out the window he wanted to know what the insects he saw on the ground were. When told that they were buffalo he erupted in laughter. He didn’t know about visual perspective and thus that objects seem to shrink in the distance. Coming closer to the objects he became frightened as the appeared to grow.

Myers had a very perceptive comment to make about this. He said, “We perceive the world not just as it is, but as we are.” How we interpret our world has a lot to do with how understand it.

This gives us a hint as to the weak link in the pro-life movement. It sounds so obvious doesn’t it? Who wants to be anti-life? Who wants to destroy their children? Who would want to make it not only possible but a legally protected right that people can take the life of the children with more legal clemency than taking the life of the pet dog?

Nobody.

I mean nobody.

Not one sane person.

And that includes most of the most dedicated self proclaimed pro-choice people.

Like the Pygmy in the plane that refused to believe that the insects he saw were actually buffalo, “pro-choice” persons do not see realities that pro-life people see. They do not see a baby, they see a clump of cells that could become a baby. They do not see the damage to the dignity and bodily integrity of women but that they are free of undesirable results. They see independence from men and not that men have been relinquished of responsibility. They see the event only affecting them; not the father, other children, grandparents, etc. They do not see freedom, they see the freeing of unnecessary societal restraints. They do not see that having the option out promotes the need for even more abortions, but see it as a safeguard against oppression. They do not see the richness of life but the escape from poverty.

So, suppose for a moment that you are pro-choice and you see the world as they do. You believe that you are fighting for the good. Being called a murderer, a hater of women, a sinner, being vilified is not something that is going to turn your heart. If anything it is evidence of exactly the thing you are trying to escape and will entrench you more deeply in your position. (Once again, is the alternative really becoming someone who calls persons like me a baby hater?)

The task then at the same time becomes easier and more monumental. It is easier because now we know more about what it is we are dealing with and can address that. It becomes more monumental because this job will be much more difficult.

One woman who used to work for NOW said one of the best things we can do is educate, educate, educate about life – scientific facts. And of course pray. Pray like gangbusters. Be compassionate and welcoming. How this exactly plays out each of us must discover. But if we want true and lasting change this is the only way. Having abortion only outlawed without conversion of hearts means much less and will always be in danger of being overturned. This is a war of hearts.

ABSURDITY IS IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Here is part two of “Atlas Said,” a commentary on common objections to the faith:

ATLAS SAID:

“Secondly, It matters not if I'm wrong, 'cause the "All-Loving" God will toss me to eternal wrath pain and suffering (which to me is a bit excessive, but hey, u gotta kill non-believers somehow I guess). The thing is what if YOU'RE wrong and you devoted your life to faith in that which is not their. I don't mean to be a (censored), but I mean, WHY do u irrationally believe their is a God and WHY do people not see that Evolution is a Fact?”

It is often the case that a person has some erroneous idea that if God is all loving then there will be absolutely no consequences for one’s actions. “God’s wrath and God’s mercy are two sides of the same coin,” one spiritual guide once said. At heart here are two questions: What is love and what does God want from us.

There are many definitions of love but in this case only one that matters and that is how God defines love. We have many commandments to love: Love the Lord your God, Love you neighbor, love your enemies. I do not have warm and fuzzy feeling about my enemies. But is that what God is calling us to? “I demand that you have warm fuzzy feelings about everybody!” If this is the case, then we have a mighty cruel God Who demands that we have feelings since we cannot summon them up at will. So God must be talking about something else.

While not denying that emotions play a role in our love life at its core God is talking about decisions; primarily the decision for the betterment of the other person – and that is first and foremost their salvation. That means if my enemy is standing in the middle of the road and a bus is bearing down on them and I grab them and pull them out of the street I have acted in love toward them. If my best friend is doing something that places his salvation in danger it might mean I must risk losing our friendship to help him or even allowing him to deal with the consequences of his behavior in order for him to find truth.

So why is not everything perfect on earth? Why does God allow us to suffer war and hunger and anger? Does He cause it? No. We do. We could end war and starvation easily enough. But we choose not to. And He allows us to live with consequences (or we would never do anything that does not suit us directly would we?) Hell is much the same thing. Hell is our doing, not God’s. And on His part it is actually an act of mercy. “Nothing unclean shall enter before God” Scripture tells us. God condemns nobody to Hell. By our lives we tell God where we want to be. Could you imagine choosing “not God” with your life and then be forced to sit before His thrown for all of eternity? Rather in His mercy He allows souls their own limited realm so that they can have that which they have chosen. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in heaven,” says the devil. Indeed. And so God allows it.

The next part is an interesting (and in my estimation more dangerous) twist on Paschal’s wager which offers the proposition that if one chooses to believe in God and there is a God one in a sense “wins.” If one chooses to believe in God and there is no God, one would never know – but they would have had a life full of hope and purpose. Atlas, I think, is worried about being duped. What if we are wrong? Paschal answered that for us. But what if one chooses not to believe and they are wrong? There is a place for that.

If He does exists (and I believe wholeheartedly that He does) what does God ultimately want from us? There is a reason He is named Father. He is looking for a relationship. That is why God’s connection to His Church in Scripture is most often referred to as a marriage. This marriage is calling all in the Church toward community and unity – toward charity – toward peace. This is completely irrational! Yes it is! It makes much more sense to go after pleasure when and where I want it – to look after me and mine! It is irrational but it is what we choose as given to us by our Creator.

Now I am going to say something that will disturb some people out there. Darwinism is not fact. Not even science says so. It is a theory and, unfortunately one that is suffering at the moment – at least the way Darwin put it forth – no matter what your eighth grade science book says. This is not my or the Church’s view – this is modern science’s view. So they are on the search for another way to explain life.

In his book, “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel which I recommend just because it is interesting (it will give you a different perspective even if you do not completely buy it) it makes the following point: “If Darwinism is true,” he reports the prominent evolutionary biologist and historian William Provine of Cornell University as saying, “there are five inescapable conclusions:
1 there’s no evidence for God.
2 there’s no life after death.
3 there’s no absolute foundation for right and wrong.
4 there’s no ultimate meaning of life.
5 people don’t really have free will.

Given the choice then of being wrong about a having a Creator or not – I err on the side of having one for life is just too bleak and senseless without him.

Lastly, for Darwinism to be true, he further reports, we must also believe the following:

1 Nothing produces everything.
2 Non-life produces life.
3 Randomness produces fine tuning.
4 Chaos produces organized information.
5 Unconsciousness produces consciousness.
6 Non-reason produces reason.

In the end then I guess I believe because as irrational as faith is, I find accepting this as far more irrational.