Aggie Catholic

How the World Really Works

2008-04-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Good article from David Bueche in the American Thinker. Read it HERE. My personal favorites:

"Any extended discussion with a pacifist almost always reaches the point where they sigh and say, "But I want to live in a world without violence." To which I respond, "I want to live in a world where I can breathe under water." What we want generally does not change things."

"

To all those out there with the "Free Tibet!" stickers, here are a few facts that will help the world make sense:

There will always be bad people.
Bad people don't care about hurting good people. Appeals to shame, empathy and guilt don't work on them. That's why they're bad people.
Bad people respond to force. They don't like it and will change their behavior to avoid it.
Good people need to use force to stop the bad people from hurting other good people.
It's not the same when a good person uses force to stop a bad person as when the bad person uses it to harm a good person.
Not letting good people use force against bad people encourages more bad behavior.
Good people using force against bad people should be encouraged. This will make the world a better place."

"Guns liberated Auschwitz and violence ended slavery. The world you "imagine" is not here on Earth but in the next life, and you're really gumming things up for the rest of us by confusing the two."

2008-02-11T18:36:00.000-08:00

Funny Videos
Bill Stickers is Innocent

Funny Videos
Ghetto Walmart

Funny Videos

Funny Videos

After the Dialogue

2008-01-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had the privilege of sitting on a panel to represent Christianity for the Interfaith Dialogue Club at the local high school in town.I went with the understanding that I'd be representing the Catholic Church, only to find when I arrived I was the only Christian on the panel. The other panelists were Baha'i, Hindu, Jewish, Unitarian, Buddhist and Islamic.

We were asked to give a general introduction to our respective faiths...in 5 minutes or less. Not to make it any easier I was stuck between a Jewish panelist who described her faith as "a moral code for social justice" and the Unitarian minister who brought his hymnal which had traditional Christian hymns (protestant we were very explicitly told), Hindu holy songs, Islamic hymns and the words of Buddha set to music.

Where do you begin to explain Christianity in 5 minutes? I couldn't very well begin with "We also believe the Jewish faith tradition but diverge 2000 years ago with Jesus of Nazareth whom we believe fulfilled the messianic prophecies..." It wouldn't make any sense in light of the Jewish introduction we got.

Interestingly enough, the panelist I felt closest to was the Islamic panelist. After the discussions were over and we were headed to our cars he and I talked about it. Neither of us felt like we could appropriately explain our faiths in the five minutes we had to answer each question while the others felt content. In fact many of our answers on questions, like prayer, came out remarkably similar. Our answers to questions about morality, and surprisingly, Heaven and Hell were also very similar. We both came to the conclusion we had to, at times, be so general that many of the distinctions of our faiths were hard to catch.

That's not to say however that Christ couldn't be found in my answers. I'd like to think every answer I gave was very Christ centered. For example, when asked about Christianity's motivations for behaving morally I answered like this:

"As I said earlier, our faith holds that mankind was not created in our present state. We were once in a perfect relationship with God as father, and with ourselves as perfect children. However, a decision was made to love ourselves more than our God. The consequences of this choice have been devastating. The good news of the Christian faith though, is that the choice is reversible. Jesus of Nazareth, we believe, came to us to give us a way to cross over the infinite chasm we created in loving ourselves rather than the One whom we should love with all our hearts. We believe that our belief in Jesus and His way, coupled with freely choosing to live our lives in the way I described earlier is how that choice is remade. Our motivation then, is simply living for the next life, when things are made perfect again. Our motivation is... Heaven. Word" (Yes I actually said "word" at the end. I was looking at the teens from our church and wanted to make sure the were listening. They were.)

All in all, it was a good experience. I learned some things about the other faiths I didn't know (did you know Hindu's consider themselves monotheistic?). I was also able to, in a short period of time, explain Christianity to over a hundred people, many of whom weren't Christians. Most of all, I think the best experiences were two-fold:

1) Some of our teens from St. Thomas Aquinas were there and got to hear their faith proclaimed publicly. Let me tell you, they were quite proud to be there as Christians.

2) I figured out I should be able to explain the faith in under five minutes. Its possible. Just from that one night, I somehow better understand some of the most important tenants of what we believe. There are some other folks who do too- they say the creed every Sunday.

In his closing remarks, the Buddhist panelist summed it up I think with what I believe the other faiths offer and where they fall gravely short: "I had a lot of questions about life. Buddhism didn't answer those questions but it gave me a direction." If he wants the answer I think I know it- Jesus.

Survivor Guy- Frisbee Golf

2007-12-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

Here's the second episode. I filmed it and put it together today. Move over Bear Grylls.

I'll be trying to podcast some

2007-12-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to try it out. I'll have some good bells and whistles next time. Here's my first try:
Aggie Catholic Podcast

Does Santa make the baby Jesus cry? (and other Christmas questions)

2007-12-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

After a nice dinner with two other couples last week, the Anti-Claus conversation began.

"Why won't we do the Santa thing?" our host asked, "because we don't lie to our kids. Also, I've read an account of a guy who said it was after his parents told him Santa wasn't real that he lost his belief in God. He sees you all the time, he knows if you're good, and lets you know to be good 'for goodness sake.' Freaky"

Heavy stuff. If the man doesn't want to lie to his kids, I can't argue with that. Does losing the Santa magic cause most kids to doubt God? Its possible I suppose, but I doubt that its common. They say they celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas, and leave it at that. They put up only some decorations at a time, so that their advent is a continual build up to Christmas, not all at once a few days after Thanksgiving. Of course, they also celebrate Christmas for all eight nights like the liturgical calendar calls for too. Not a bad plan really.

I loved Santa Claus while it lasted. Let me put it in perspective for you: Not only were the milk and cookies out, but as bedtime approached and the precious few minutes of Christmas Eve were quickly passing by, I was busy consulting my parents as to the final touches of that years full-proof alarm system that would help me wake up and see Santa doing his thing. Even if that plan didn't work, nothing compared to seeing the "evidence" that Santa had indeed come to your house and not only dropped off presents, but had also eaten the cookies specially selected and laid out for him. When the year came that Santa didn't make his visit, there was no love lost. I was old enough to know by then.

Why the big difference of opinion between the Pro and Anti-Clausers? Obviously, focus is the foremost issue. If Jesus is the reason for the season, why the need for a fat man who breaks into your house to give you stuff? If you know the story of St. Nick (linked earlier in the post) you understand his association with Christmas and giving. Its also easy to see the transformation from Saint of Myrna to the Patron of Retailers (He's not, its actually Lucy of Syracuse. Go figure). Butshould Santa Claus be usable for Catholics in our day and age? Doesn't it lead to a loss of focus on Jesus?

I think it worth mentioning that there is no inherent evil in the use of Santa. Its said that the Santa as we know him came from St. Nicholas. Some folks like to claim he also comes from the German pagan god of war Odin as well, but I haven't found any good evidence for that myself. You know those silly gods of war, leaving kids presents in their stocking and eating cookies by the fire. However, like I said, the Santa myth is not inherently evil nor does it tend to evil or away from goodness ("be good for goodness sake"). Its all in the use of the thing. You can use him as an example of Christian giving, or an example of worldly materialism. To finish up, here's one guy's account of how his parents handled it:

"On the "Santa controversy," my own parents struck what has always seemed to me an ideal stance: Every year we read "The Night Before Christmas" and watched "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Babes in Toyland," so Santa was definitely a part of our domestic culture, but we never did the milk and cookies routine, and on Christmas morning the presents were always accurately labeled "From Mom & Dad" or "From Grandma & Grandpa," etc.

In short, my parents never made a big deal one way or the other about Santa's reality: They never went out of their way to tell us "Santa isn't real," any more than they went out of their way to tell us that Felix the Cat or Spider-Man weren't real. Santa was just one more character in our imaginative landscape. But they also never told us that Santa was real, and never acted like he was.

That's more or less what I've done with my own kids, except that Sarah, our oldest, has always insisted on absolute clarity about what is and isn't real, and explicitly wanted to know right away if Santa was real, so we had to tell her -- and then we also had to tell her that SOME parents DO tell their kids about Santa Claus WITHOUT telling them that he isn't real, and whatever we may think of that, it's not our place to tell those children otherwise. (As a very young child Sarah was always offended and upset when adults would ask her what Santa was bringing her. And she did NOT like the mall Santas AT ALL.)

But we still read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with our kids, and this year we're watching Babes in Toyland from Netflix."

Next time:
Is giving gifts immoral?

Marriage Survivor Man

2007-12-05T11:18:00.000-08:00

We talked about marriage this past weekend for our teen program. Here's part of my contribution:

Star Wars Kid

2007-09-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

This has been out forever, but I still want to fall out of my chair every time. First the original, and then the new and improved:

The "Bottom Billion"

2007-09-07T19:25:00.001-07:00

Good review by First Things on a book I need to read called the Bottom Billion.

"One billion of the world’s population are rich; four billion are, albeit at varying pace, on the way to becoming rich; the real challenge is the “bottom billion.” They are caught in a number of “traps” that keep them poor and almost guarantee that they will be poorer in the years ahead, a ghetto of misery, disease, and discontent on an otherwise flourishing planet. The bottom billion are the radically marginalized. Seventy percent of them are in Africa. Although Collier does not discuss Catholic social doctrine, his analysis is remarkably similar to that of John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus: The really poor are poor because they are excluded, or exclude themselves, from the global circle of productivity and exchange."

Check it out.

C'mon God, think!

2007-09-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

I've thought quite a bit lately about some objections brought up about the theist answer to the problem of evil. For example, its been asked "If God is perfectly good, powerful and loving, then He has the ability to create humans who have free-will yet choose always and everywhere good. Why hasn't He done this?" Put in logical form it would look something like this:

God is all powerful
An all powerful being can create anything
Therefore God can create anything
Something is a part of anything
To always choose good within free will would be a form of perfection
Humans could potentially be perfect
Perfect humans are something
Therefore God can create humans who always chose good within free will

(not done to Dr. Menzel's standard but it'll work)

The underlying assumption that goes with this argument however is that if something is possible for God to do (i.e.- create perfectly good humans), and we think He should have done it, then He should have done it. Sort of like a five year old telling his mom he should have a cookie before dinner because he could eat it if she gave it to him.

A couple of thoughts on why God didn't create us to choose good all the time:
1) As weird as it sounds, maybe we were. What if we were created in such a way that we chose good every time- every time that is that we encountered the occasion of temptation without outside influence. Though we could never know, who's to say how long Adam and Eve lived prior to committing the first sin with the help of a certain serpent. Just a thought that popped into my head, I couldn't back it up too much without more thought (and I don't know if its something I'd want to back up if I gave it more thought... whatever).
2) Maybe God's perfect wisdom saw it necessary to show us a contrast between real good and real evil. How could we know evil unless we saw it in real life? Anyone who has done any electrical work (or put together anything from Home Depot) knows that the way things should work theoretically and how they really work are world's apart. To copy Dr. Peter Kreeft "you can't appreciate the height of the mountain unless you see the depth of the valley."

To close out this post, I'd like to make mention that there are humans who exist in a state with their free will perfectly aligned to God's- they're in Heaven. A couple of them even walked the earth: Jesus and his mom.

Why we can't just say we won the lotto of existence...

2007-09-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

Great piece by Mark Shea on why the materialistic view of the universe where we "just happen to be lucky enough to live in the one-out-of-an-infinite-number-of-universes where all the physical laws happen to be fine-tuned enough to produce us," is wrong. Read it HERE.

Goat sacrifices for air safety

2007-09-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

Get the story HERE. Yeah, makes sense to me. I just can't believe they weren't sacrificing goats already. We do that here right? Oh, we don't? That's right, those with more culture sacrifice babies.

Judge Judy and Executioner

2007-09-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

For anyone that hasn't seen Hot Fuzz (movie preview here), there is a line where Sgt. Angel tells Danny that his dad "thinks he is judge, jury, and executioner," to which Danny responds "He is not Judge Judy and executioner." While this is humorous it has nothing to do with my point, it just provides a segway to it- we have a judge Judy culture.

If you've seen the show you may know what I mean, if you haven't, don't watch it, take my word for it. It seems that every time I work on a rental property (or my grandma's house, who just can't find quality daytime programming) I find Judge Judy or some show based on the same concept is on and its always the same situation: Someone gave someone else money (usually an insignificant amount) and that person didn't give it back. Occasionally there's a stolen vehicle or a boyfriend/girlfriend living in an apartment not paying rent blah, blah, blah. The thing that you notice is that Judge Judy basically has her mind made up before the "trial" starts. When the plaintiffs walk into the room they're judged and its just a matter of getting through their all too familiar whining for her to make her grand pronouncements on who is a dummy and owes whom money. What you also notice is that should a plaintiff have the chutzpa to bring up the fact that Judge Judy wouldn't really listen to his/her side of the story all heck fire and darnednation breaks loose. "How dare you judge the judge!"

How is this a generational problem (besides the whiners on the show)? Read the headlines on yahoo or any other site. Take for instance these headlines from today at cnn.com:

Now pick out the stories pertaining to a celebrity, for instance John McCain being quoted as calling someone "you little jerk." Based on the headline you have an expectation right? You're probably thinking "Surely John McCain's run for the presidency is over, he called someone a jerk and it was overheard by a reporter." Now, even after you read the context of the story (he was joking with a high schooler who made fun of his age) you have a judgment already made. Judge Judy and executioner.

What if you called someone a jerk in a teasing manner and it was taken out of context? "C'mon, that's not what I meant, you weren't listening to what was going on." Judge Judy and executioner.

The popular thing now, as it always is in politics, is to use the label of "hypocrite." Problem is no one seems to remember how the word hypocrite is supposed to be used. For example, suppose John McCain really was angry and called some high school kid a jerk. Prior to his going to the high school suppose he first visited an elementary school where he told the kids to use the "golden rule" and that name calling, hitting, etc. was not right. While inappropriate, if McCain just lost his temper for a minute and later apologized he isn't being hypocritical, it was not his intention necessarily to call the kid a jerk, he just lost control for a little bit, he's human and he screwed up.

On the other hand, take Britney Spears new album which supposedly uses the f-bomb. As a former member of the Mickey Mouse club, and as a concerned parent, suppose she visited an elementary school and told the kids that using bad language was a bad thing. Either she A) really believes bad language such as the F-word is wrong and still used it intentionally making her a hypocrite or B) she doesn't really believe usage of the mother of all bad words is wrong and she was lying to the kids to improve her image. There is a difference between each example, one is intentional and the other not.

All in all, I think I'm going to have to try my best to stop my Judge Judy and executioner act. If I screw up, its just me being a sinner and falling again. Here's to forgiveness.

Beginning Again

2007-09-03T09:33:00.001-07:00

With school starting (albeit without me this semester, I'm going to work) its time to get myself back into the blogging rhythm. I've noticed its easier for me to blog when I know I'm procrastinating from something like studying or homework, for this semester it'll just have to be procrastinating from the Playstation I guess. Here we go...

Back from the beach!

2007-07-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

Amy, myself, my parents (+ kids) and a couple of friends went down to the Galveston beach over the weekend. We're back, and not ready for Monday.

Pirates 3

2007-06-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

I was pretty disappointed with both Pirates of the Caribbean 2&3. After hearing there's more to Pirates 3 after the credits finish I was even more disappointed, I am not sitting through it again just to see that.

With that in mind, here's what would have been a better version of Pirates 3.

Pope's letter to China

2007-06-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

The much anticipated letter to China from the Pope is finally out there. Read it HERE. There's also an explanatory note from the Vatican about the letter HERE.

When the truth hits home, put 'em in jail for telling it.

2007-06-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Lutheran pastor in Germany got a one year jail sentence for comparing the abortions in Germany to the holocaust. Get the story HERE. It won't be long before we won't be able to say stuff like this here in America either.

UPDATE:
Story was retracted by its source.

Single Issue Voting- A response answered

2007-06-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

I was just going to keep this to the combox but my response was so long I thought it would be more appropriate as a post. Since more responses have come to me via facebook note than combox I thought this would draw a better response since all my posts end up on facebook and not just here on the blog. This is based on my post Single Issue Voting. First, if you haven't read my post, check it out at the above link. Secondly, read the response by Damien to my post:

Brothers and Sisters, a small point re the "moral math" Interesting how your death toll doesn't include Iraqi dead, but only American dead. Last I heard more than half a millio n Iraqis had died as a result of the war and its predicted aftermath. Why not? Don't overseas deaths compute in the moral math of American voting? I am, by the way, pro-life, from conception to natural death. Jesus was non-violent. Listen to your pope, your bishops and the whole Catholic hierarchy. There are very feew exceptions. The current holy father is a contingent pacififst - that is to say he doesn't reject the notion of just war as such, but clearly feels the conditions are unlikely to be met in this climate - both in terms of ius ad bellum and ius in bello. I agree - there's no problem with single issue voting - as long as you take on the whole issue. That includes abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, war, the death penalty and poverty. If you can't find a candidate consistent on all of this, you shouldn't vote. It's that simple. Just saying that there is a moral responsibility to vote for the lesser evil on balance is proportionalism in other words. By the way, what's with the burning in Hell cartoon? I was under the impression that God alone would be our judge...
Much peace to you all.

Now here's my return:

I used only American deaths because I only used American abortion totals. Being that American voters only have control over American abortion laws I thought it would be best to compare the two. I also, having been an American soldier during the war and an intelligence analyst none the less, think the "half a million" civilian Iraqi deaths is a bit of a stretch. However, even if you calculate 500,000 Iraqi deaths from the war it isn't near the 5.5 million deaths from abortion alone in America since the start of the war. If you check iraqbodycounts.com, a decidedly anti-war website, they only report 72,489 Iraqi civilian deaths. I use the word "only" because of the great exaggeration of 500,000 and because 73,000 is the "body-count" reached by American abortion totals in less than a month.

As far as the reasoning of the pope and some bishops towards the justification of the war the, CCC under paragraph 2309 states that "The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good." That judgment would belong to those in our country who have the authority to make such decisions, namely our president and other elected officials. Notice that the decision is not the pope's or any other Church appointed official. In such matters obviously every Catholic must listen to and respect our Church leader's opinions as they carry great moral weight, but the information our national leaders have to make these decisions is better and comes in greater volume and is the reason why it is their decision to make.

Speaking of the opinions of the pope and our bishops, have you read Bishop Chaput's statement listed by catholic mom? As it turns out the pope's spokesman even made the comment recently that “Legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist." While voting for an anti-life candidate is not directly supporting abortion, it is not so small as just a "second-effect" if voting for another candidate who does support pro-life policies is available. That is of course assuming that abortion is a greater moral evil than a potentially justifiable war, which I think is the case. Contrast quotes 1&2 from 3 out of the catechism:
1)CCC 2271"Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."
2)CCC 2272 "Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense."
3)"All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, 'as long as the danger of war persists...governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed."

Numbers 1 and 2 show an unmoving certainty of grave sin of abortion while number 3 shows the potentiality for war's necessity. I think the sheer volume of deaths due to always gravely sinful abortion compared to the very small numbers of deaths due to the war in Iraq (because that's the one we're concerned with)is so overly proportional it is silly to think the two are even near a level plain morally. Being a "contingent pacifist" as you call the holy father, does not change the grave immoral value of abortion vs war. Again, the sheer numbers work against the argument. If the circumstances were changed, for instance if the war was totally unjustifiable and was causing massive numbers of innocent deaths, like maybe 500,000 while at the same time there were only say 1,000 abortions it would be justifiable to call the war the greater evil.

On the matter of the "lesser of two evils" I would agree that in some cases the lesser of two evils must be chosen. For instance if Giuliani won the repub ticket it would force repub voters to potentially look for a pro-life candidate in the dem or independent parties and vice-versa.

Poverty, the war, the death penalty and euthanasia are not the same issue as abortion. While these other things can destroy the dignity of the human person, none of them destroy it at its inception the way abortion does. Infants could be regarded as the essence of innocence, totally dependent upon their parents or other caretakers. Even if the death penalty is unnecessary, its not as if the criminals don't know the punishment for their crimes. Likewise euthanasia is a sin against one's own dignity. War as I discussed earlier can be potentially justifiable. Poverty, when defined as "relative poverty" (that is say that for instance the American standard of living compared to the standard of living of a nomadic tribe would make the nomads to be in relative poverty)is no such offense against human dignity. When defined as "absolute poverty" it must be necessary to find the cause and "fixibility" of the situation before a "moral" judgment can be made. Even when a grave offense (absolute poverty that is), to human dignity it does not fall within the shadow of evil cast by the murder of the essence of innocence.

And about the picture, no one is judging whether any of the people depicted is going to burn in hell, only God will know their final destination. Its a satire based on the movie "300" using less than orthodox Church officials. I have to say though I think any influential official condoning same-sex marriage, women priests and the like seems to fall in the millstone around the neck category- barring any unforeseen repentence.

Responses welcome (Especially you guys- Tom, Bartlett and Joe K.)

40- He he

2007-06-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

Got this from the catholic cartoons blog.

The Use of Confession

2007-06-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of a debate with someone today about confession. My friend had been on a week-long retreat and had come back very spiritually motivated. She was also excited about some things she had taken away from reading a book by Maria Valtorta (who's book Poem of the Man God was on the Vatican's forbidden book list back before the list was done away with). She was extremely excited about the holiness of the Eucharist, which is a fantastic thing. One thing she said, however, struck me the wrong way. My friend told me she wanted to go to confession every week just so she'd be holier and more pure for receiving the Eucharist.

For most folks I guess that might not sound odd but think about this- when we receive the Eucharist we are cleansed of venial sins. So, assuming that the person is talking about wiping away venial sins and not mortal, then saying that you want to go to confession so you will be purer for communion is like saying you want to go get your car detailed so you can take it to the car wash.

Now I'm not at all saying that confession is bad or shouldn't be used. On the contrary the sacrament of confession is probably the most underused (and perhaps the most needed) sacrament nowadays. What I am saying is that the sacrament of penance is for cleansing the soul for our salvation. That should include a deep examination of conscience and true sorrow for one's sins. But confession should be used for itself, like finding those little sins you usually don't think about throughout the day and asking for forgiveness and trying to avoid them or unloading the big sins you know you shouldn't have committed but feel really sorry for now. The motivation, or desire for confession should stem from the desire for purity itself and from the desire for forgiveness from God, not from a desire to be clean for something else.

My friend thinks it isn't a big deal whether or not she feels she should go to confession just for communion or not, I think it is a big deal. Motivations, or reasons for willing things, are sometimes just as important as the things themselves. A child is always a blessing from God, but if a parent wants a child just to attempt to patch up a relationship it's the wrong reason. In the same manner if a couple got married just so they could get better pay and split it (happens in the military more often than you think) it is the wrong reason for getting married. Likewise, confession has its own reasons proper to the sacrament and this includes the purifying of the soul for the sake of purifying the soul, not for the sake of receiving another sacrament. A bicycle and a car are both forms of transportation, they get you from point A to point B. However, you don't drive your car in preparation for riding your bike.

So, long story short, confession is for purifying the soul for the sake of salvation. The Eucharist is communion with Jesus via His body and blood, soul and divinity in a way that unites us to Him in heaven as well as with the entire Church in all its forms. They are not one for another but rather each has its own purpose towards the common cause of salvation.

Comrade Clinton

2007-05-28T20:56:00.001-07:00

It's funny because its true.

Single Issue Voting

2007-05-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, who is Catholic and politically liberal, mentioned to me the other day that he would be voting for Barack Obama should he win the democratic primary. Obama, is NOT pro-life. I asked him how that squared with voting pro-life and he said he would not be made a "one-issue" voter. I didn't have the time to tell him he had been had, but that's what blogs are for.

I think there is one basic problem (and all politicians/political parties tend to do this), that is to discuss things in terms of "issues" and forget the fact that they're discussing real people. This leads to an easy breakdown of any objective moral value. Case in point, abortion and the right to life becomes a single "issue" right alongside talking about taxes or military base closures. Its easy to then quantify instead of qualify. You can say "I won't be made a single-issue voter" instead of "I care more about welfare programs and the war in Iraq than the tens-of-thousands of children murdered every day due to abortion." Sounds much better right?

If "issues" are about people, then we need to be discussing issues in terms of 1)their potentiality for good and evil, and 2) the moral weight of the potential evil which could be done. While tax law A has the potentiality to do good or bad, abortion has only the potentiality for evil. The fact that a tax law could potentially have good or bad effects makes it somewhat negotiable compared with a law which can only bring evil. Next, what would be the moral weight of these issues? A tax law which turns out to hurt the economy can force us to lose some money, maybe some jobs, but no lives are taken (as a direct effect anyway) and so the moral weight could again be considered negotiable. On the other hand, legallized abortion is murdering a baby. Murder, is obviously a very serious and evil crime and therefore it is non-negotiable in nature as far as whether it should be condemned.

Weigh the consequenses of whatever you like and the result turns out to be the same. Even, the Iraq war has its potentiallity for good (even those ardently against it must admit the potential good) while abortion is never allowable. US war deaths have been numbered at 3,431 since the war started in March of 2003. The number of deaths due to abortion in the US each day is about 3,700. That leaves the total number of US abortion deaths since 2003 at around 5.5 million. You do the moral math.

I realize that the "Hannity argument" is compare something, anything, to Nazi Germany and you win, but this comparison really does work- If you lived in Nazi Germany and the "issues" surrounding your next election (imagining you get one) are taxes, the military build-up, the invasion of Poland and the Jewish Holocaust, which issue would be more important to you?

We do live in a country, and a world where there is a holocaust going on. What should we choose?

Finals

2007-05-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Finals are finished so I should have more time to blog now. Whew.

Where was her choice?

2007-05-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

Another reality check to those who think "pro-choice" is really about some kind of freedom to choose something- article HERE.

Social Justice?

2007-05-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

In the social justice section of the Diocese of Austin's newsletter The Catholic Spirit in the section entitled "Social Justice" I found an article titled "Catholic immigration position is pro-life, pro-family." HERE is a link to the article.

The article gives the story of a family father, Enrique, who recieves a temporary worker permit and comes to the US to work. He has to work in the US because he can no longer make any money from farming corn in Mexico due to the United States' free trade agreement with Mexico which makes the corn shipped from north of the border extremely cheap. Aside from being a shot at the US' free-trade agreement and implying its our fault his corn doesn't make money, the article continues to go on by saying that it could be seven or eight years before his family could join Enrique as legal immigrants. The article's author, Barbara Budde, tells us

"The realistic picture is that Enrique and his family are completely separated for seven to eight years. For seven to eight years, Enrique’s wife is deprived of her husband and their children are left fatherless –– not because of death, but because of immigration laws. Is it any wonder that people would consider breaking such laws to be with their family?For every Enrique who came to the United States legally, there are thousands who have been forced to come illegally because they cannot support themselves or their families in their home countries. That is why the Catholic Church supports immigration reform. We are pro-life and pro-family. Families facing starvation is not a pro-life concept and families living in long term forced separation is not a pro-family concept."

It is certainly a sad story, but while Enrique is certainly separated from his family for maybe seven or eight years, is his family really fatherless? Separation doesn't leave a family fatherless. Do the children not know who sends them the money they eat with? While not ideal, is he not setting a fatherly example of sacrifice for his family? It seems to be assumed that immigration to the United States is an inherent right for everyone.

There are two main points I want to make regarding the short-sightedness of both the article and immigration liberalization supporters. First, no one every mentions why there is a problem in Mexico (save Mrs. Budde's blaming the US because of NAFTA). In the United States we always work for social reform, how much are we hearing this call in Mexico? In the US, the government subsidizes farmer's crops, paying them not to grow more than a certain amount, therefore keeping the prices and the supply at a reasonable level. Is this happening in Mexico? I certainly don't know, but surely if corn prices are bad in Mexico they should model their system after ours rather than send their population to us. A certain "give a man a fish..." cliche comes to mind. If the Church in Mexico and Mexicans would support government reforms (they are a democracy after all) in that country to help the people in the long term then immigration laws would be a non-issue. Instead, blame America for not letting more people be Americans is the rallying cry.

Point number two, in a post 9/11 world liberalized immigration laws can't work. I happen to have a particularly different insight into this since I was a military intelligence analyst and I worked the Americas for a couple of years. Interestingly enough, its not just Mexicans crossing our borders. Other foreign nationals have been caught, and low corn prices weren't their motivation. I've been reminded by so-called immigration "reformers" that the US is a nation of immigrants. While true, it would be self-deception to say that we weren't also now a nation of true Americans. Would it not be pro-life and pro-family to protect those who are citizens of this country? Mrs. Budde says "Starvation is not a pro-life concept." Were the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center buildings pro-life?

As far as claiming the labels "pro-life" and "pro-family" for her own crowd, Mrs. Budde has neglected the fact that there is a country on the other side of the border just as responsible for the separation of families and the potentiality of its people's starvation. Mrs. Budde neglects to see that there is a choice of either running to our country or fighting for life in their own. She has shown neither the pro-family or especially not the pro-life side of immigration reform.

The answer as to the morality of Mrs. Budde's opening question still remains: "Why would the Catholic Church be in support of law-breakers?" She doesn't answer it but instead tells us the sad story. Catholic philosophical thought supports the man who must steal bread to feed his starving family- if he has no other lawful alternative. Is there an alternative? Yes, Mexican reform for their own people. Can the Church support the breaking of immigration laws? St. Thomas Aquinas has said that it is okay to break the laws which are really "unlawful." Is the United States' position on immigration unlawful? By no means. It is designed to protect it's own citizens. Is this in some way not pro-life or pro-family? No, on the contrary it is pro-family and pro-life. I wish Mrs. Budde could see her own countrymen, she probably could if her nose wasn't so high.

Problem with the Problem of Evil (part I)

2007-04-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

I drive a lot for work. This gives me plenty of time to think. My thoughts have been caught up quite a bit lately with the problems in the "Problem of Evil" argument. As an aside, if you're ever on Jeopardy its also called the "Epicurean Paradox." For those unfamiliar with the argument, you can generalize it like this:

God exists. (premise)
God is omnipotent. (premise — or true by definition of the word 'God')
God is all-benevolent. (premise — or true by definition)
All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
God can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 2)
1. Whatever the end result of suffering is, God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 2)
2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 7.1)
3. God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
God will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 6, 7.2 and 7.3)
Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
Items 8 and 9 are contradictory; therefore, one or more of the premises is false: either God does not exist, or he is not both omnipotent and all-benevolent or there is a reason why He does not act immediately.

The first thing you may notice is that the argument assumes in #7.1 that suffering may not potentially be the best way for some things to be learned. It is a prejudice to think that there must be a better alternative to what exists. If God is omnipotent and all-benevolent, and created all that exists then it should be assumed that based on these qualities He would have created things in the best way possible. Thus, the existing state of things is the best way it could have been created. To assume otherwise is to assume that God thinks as does the framer of the argument, which is ultimately prejudiced toward said framer.

Another thing present in the argument is in #5 and #10 when it states the possibility that "there is a reason why He [God] does not act immediately. It is stated last for a reason, the debater wants this to be the last alternative. However, the fact that this alternative is even acknowledged ends the debate. If there is a possibility that God's thoughts are infinitely above that of humans it is always possible that the moral weight of such things as free-will is much greater than the moral weight of suffering. Also, in #5 its states that "All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it." This again doesn't take into account the moral weight of free-will. If an all-knowing God thinks that free-will is better than the potential evil that could be caused, lesser-knowing humans must accept it as true just like a 5 year old has to accept that the brownies he really, really wants before dinner may not be good for him because his mommy told him so.

An interesting problem (and somewhat less noticeable by most folks) is that the argument assumes the existence of evil. Here, most people are probably like "yeah, isn't it obvious that evil exists?" It is. Therefore, God exists. You see in a world in which God does not exist the possibility of a humankind-wide standard of morality reaches nil. To paraphrase Dostoevsky "If God doesn't exist, then all things are acceptable." Without God, there is no one to punish your wrong doing (outside of human law enforcement of course). There is only subjectively relative law, and that means that to claim that evil exists is only to claim that you, as an individual, believe it exists based on your personal standards. On the other hand, if you claim that evil exists and is known objectively and not relatively based on personal belief, then God must exist and must have created a "natural-law" so to speak, of which all of mankind has knowledge.

The laptop is getting hot in my lap and my coffee is running dangerously low, so I'll continue with some more interesting (or not so interesting) thoughts on the problem of evil later.

Schedule for next semester

2007-04-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

The moment I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting- my fall '07 schedule:
Persuasion (you can all prepare to be persuaded often after next semester)
Theory of Knowledge
Ethical Theory (I'm sure it'll be great at a public school)
Russian II
Intro to Western Theater Drama (this fulfills an arts requirement)

Believe it or not, Texas A&M is supposed to have one of the top five philosophy dept. in the country. I have no sources for verification of this, but that's the word on the street. I'm pretty excited about next semester.

STAY (St. Thomas Aquinas Youth) having fun

2007-04-28T22:31:00.001-07:00

Eating some hamburgers pre-Spring Show

Beautiful

2007-04-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

I heard a conversation the other day about beauty. One person said "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," while the other said "beauty is objective." Its easy to understand and agree with the first person. To say that something is beautiful in contemporary usage lends towards its personal likability. Modern art is "beautiful" to some people. Pile up some metal, throw in some bricks and viola, beauty! I seem to feel intuitively, however, that beauty is not personal fancy. Instead the second speaker may have been on to something. I don't care much for the majority of modern art, but place me in the Rocky Mountains and my heart sings for joy. I long to praise the artist. I don't know if I can explain it.

Perhaps the word "beautiful" is somewhat overused in contemporary language. Is it another word like "love" which is cheapened by everyday use? I think that in the traditional Christian sense it is used in describing things that tend toward the Divine, that is to say things that show a hint of God Himself. Take us for instance. We say that each and every human being is beautiful no matter their appearance or mental or physical abilities. How can we believe something like that if beauty is only personal preference? Surely I prefer some people to others, or I prefer one person's appearance to another but I'm still called to recognize the beauty in each individual. Why? Because we are created in the image and likeness of God. We tend to reflect the beauty of God in our very existence, in our souls.

This concept of an individuals beauty as inherent based on their likeness to God is key in understanding the loving of one's neighbors- and enemies- as commanded by Jesus. The one whom I despise is also inherently beautiful just like my wife, my mother, my best friend- or the aborted.

How is that anyone can ask for the death of a small child if it is beautiful? Its beauty, its inherent value is already given from God, it has already been created in the image and likeness of God. Who therefore has the right to remove from this earth its beating heart? Does rape steal away the beauty of God's likeness? Does incest or an unintended pregnancy remove God's glory from His created image and likeness? Is it possible that down syndrome or autism can hold back the awesomeness that causes angels to fall on their faces and tremble at the sound of His voice. Of course not.

Yes, I think I can explain it. Beauty is God. That is why we find it in the mountain peaks He has created with a whisper of His mighty voice. That is why the smallest unborn child or oldest bed-ridden man and woman is beautiful.

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven AND earth are FULL of your glory and beauty.

The rest of the Liturginator's Crew- "Triage"

2007-04-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

Paul over at Alive and Young has the rest of the story on the Liturginator's group as put into action by the Vatican: Triage.

Thanks Paul.

Orthodox Catholic Video

2007-04-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

Neat video showing old pictures of Catholics compared to new- similar things. What the hippies and feminazis of the Church don't want you to see.
I love the ending: "Face it hippies, its over."

Catholic Simpsons

2007-04-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

Funny cartoon. I like Rev. Lovejoys "one true church" bit, it makes me glad to be a part of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church.

FANTASTIC interview with Dr. Anthony Esolen- "Finding the Masculine Genius"

2007-04-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

One of the best interviews I've read all year. I don't know what struck me so much. I think maybe it was the fact that this is so rarely heard and yet so completely true. Read the interview HERE. Read it!

Among some of my favorite things Professor Esolen said were:

"I see manhood as the drive to lead -- to serve by leading, or to lead by
following loyally the true leadership of one's father or priest or captain. The
man exercises charity by training himself to be self-reliant in ordinary things,
not out of pride, but out of a sincere desire to free others up for their own
duties, and to free himself for things that are not ordinary. The man also must
refuse -- this is a difficult form of self-sacrifice -- to allow his feelings to
turn him from duty, including his duty to learn the truth and to follow it. A
man loves his own family, but he also loves his family by refusing to subject
the entire civil order to the welfare of his family; he understands that if he
performs his duty, other families besides his own will profit by it. A man must
consider his life dispensable for the sake of those he leads; he must obey his
legitimate superior; if and only if he does so will he become really necessary
and really worthy of the obedience he claims, with scriptural authority that
need not embarrass anyone."

"Then they might notice that Jesus is not the cute boyfriend that many of
our churches make him out to be, the one who never goes too far -- forgive me if
that is a little coarse. Jesus loves women, as all good men must; Jesus obeys
his mother at Cana; but Jesus does not hang around the skirts of women; he
speaks gently, but as a man speaks gently, and when he rebukes, he rebukes
forthrightly and clearly, as a man. His closest comrades are men, though they
are not necessarily the people he loves best in the world. He organizes them
into a battalion of sacrifice. He is remarkably sparing in his praise of them;
certainly, as is the case with many good and wise men, he is much more desirous
that they should come to know him than that they should feel comfortable about
themselves. From his apostles he seems to prefer the love that accompanies
apprehension of the truth, rather than love born of his own affectionate actions
toward them. In fact, they respond to him as men often respond: They admire and
follow with all the greater loyalty the man who rebukes them for, of all things,
being frightened when it appears their ship will capsize in the stormy Sea of
Galilee! Men can learn from Jesus to seek the company of other men, at least in
part for the sake of women, and certainly for the sake of the village, the
nation, the Church and the world. They can learn that there are two ways at
least in which man is not meant to be alone: He needs the complementary virtues
of woman, and he needs other men. A soldier alone is no soldier."

Tell it like it is

2007-04-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

Archbishop Angelo Amato had a few things to say to the media about abortion clinics and other contemporary progressive things: "'slaughterhouses of human beings', euthanasia, and 'parliaments of so-called civilized nations where laws contrary to the nature of the human being are being promulgated, such as the approval of marriage between people of the same sex ...'"

Get the story HERE.

He he, found it online

2007-04-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

Good article from New Oxford Review

2007-04-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

A good article showing the hypocrisy of the contraception crowd, especially some up in the hierarchy of the current breast cancer craze. Get the story HERE.

I like this:

"Artificial birth control has become increasingly accessible and customary. Slowly we have depreciated our own self-worth to the point of calling contraception "healthy" and implying it is "pro-family," as the Better Homes and Gardens article transparently articulates. Yet those who say they are pro-women will continue to deny the Pill's link to breast cancer, the national media will ignore the Mayo Clinic study, and we will skip through fields of flowers wearing our pink ribbons."

UPDATE:
Catholic & 20 Something pinged back with the link to the report referred to in the article. Thanks Christopher.

UPDATE 2.0:
Lynne at A Quiet Catholic pinged back with a more recent report from the Mayo clinic. It is HERE.

A business chart I can understand

2007-04-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

A few Godstock Texas Pictures

2007-04-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

We had about 600 teens there for the weekend camping out Saturday night. We played games, listened to a few talks, adored Christ in the eucharist and had a plain old good time.

Godstock 2007- Austin Diocese

2007-04-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

We had a blast with our youth group from St. Thomas Aquinas this weekend at Godstock in the Texas hill country. Here's a clip of Amy and I with our "triplets" in the back. They were great.

The Liturginator

2007-04-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

When the Vatican realized the scope of liturgical abuse in America they decided something had to be done...they called in...

THE LITURGINATOR

Disney- the place where fairies can get married

2007-04-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

I recall as a kid not being able to read my Disney Adventures magazine anymore since my parents canceled the subscription because Disney had put out the highly anti-catholic movie "Priest." I think its time to renew the call to boycott Disney (if you don't already avoid most of their trash).

As it turns out, the Magic Kingdom thinks it has the power of the Heavenly Kingdom and is performing magical gay unions. The story is HERE.

According to the article:

"Gay couples are now free to buy a Fairy Tale Wedding package at Disneyland, Disney World, or Disney's cruise ships, with 'a ceremony setting befitting the dreams of a princess.' The Disney properties have long allowed same-sex couples to tie the knot on the premises, but this is the first time those unions are being given official sanction. The Magic Kingdom has thus proved itself more progressive than the motherland, or as progressive as you can be while throwing around the word 'fairy.'"

My first reaction is to tell everyone "Do NOT take your kids to Disney World/Land." The last thing a six year old (or any kid for that matter) needs to see is two guys in princess outfits (or pink prince outfits) exchanging vows. I shudder to be the one to answer little Bobby's question of what the hell is going on.

The article continues to go on explaining that the writer thinks its a good thing- blah blah blah my heads up my you know where but then she says:

"My objection: Marriage isn't being re-engineered. It is evolving in an impeccably Hayekian fashion, as folkways appear on the ground and are gradually ratified by imitation, then market acknowledgement, and then, only lastly, by the law. For eons, same-sex couples have quietly lived as though they were married. As social mores changed and gays came out of the closet, so did those longtime-companion relationships. Before long, lovers were holding their own marriage ceremonies, which were not recognized by the government or (at first) by any established church but did carry weight with family, friends, and neighbors. Couples started to draw up marriage-like contracts, in an effort to establish rights privately that they couldn't acquire publicly. Businesses had to decide whether to extend benefits to gay spouses; with time, more and more did."

First of hun, marriage can't evolve. This will always be the contention of those who give a crap about truth. Marriage isn't just an "I love you and want to live with you" thing. That's what it is reduced to when anyone other than a man and women want to get married. It isn't that its not fair, its that it isn't possible.

That marriage is treated as an "I love you and want to live with you" thing is evidenced first by the prevalence of divorce in our society- the moment one member of the couple is tired of the arrangment the throw in the towel to find a new one. It only makes sense that if that's all that marriage is then anyone can marry anyone (hell, anything) and its fine. If marriage is no more than feelings and a living arrangment then that psycho who married the Israeli dolphin a while back would be justified.

If on the other hand marriage really is a union whereby two individual people become one, and that this union is not only symbolically, but really actualized through the marriage act then same-sex marriages are not only not possible but ridiculous.

Secondly, what the author demonstrates is not an argument for "marital evolution" but is a demonstration of how the slippery slope has pushed the cultural concept of marriage from knowing its unacceptable to saying they want it to be acceptable to thinking that gives them a right to demand its acceptability.

Bottom line: don't take your kids to Disney, for it is the land of the fairies now.

Some young doctors have consciences

2007-04-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

More doctors to be in Britain are not learning how to perform abortions based on conscientious objection. Get the story HERE.

Of course teachers blame it a lack of "glamour" in the baby murdering field:

"Some senior doctors have blamed declining interest on the lack of 'glamour' involved in the work.
This has been dubbed 'dinner party syndrome' where doctors don't want to admit to their friends that they do abortions."

What's the solution? Make someone else do it:

"But the situation has prompted abortion groups to call for a change in the law which would allow nurses to carry out early surgical and medical abortions - procedures which are technically simple."

I hope the nurses have the right and the consciences to object.

Partial Birth Abortion Ban Upheld!

2007-04-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Score one for the home team! The Supreme Court has held that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is not unconstitutional. This of course isn't the end all end to abortion, but its definitely a step in the right direction. Get the story HERE.

The new conservative judges helped to get this done. Just another reason why guys like Giuliani can't be elected by a pro-life base.

Keeping Catholic Hospitals Catholic in Britain

2007-04-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Bravo Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. Get the story HERE.

Soldiers of Christ

2007-04-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

Its amazing to see the resolve in the bishops of Zimbabwe. To get a little blurb on it go HERE.

Confirmation for the kids from my parish was last Friday, and in all the preparation the focus was on them becoming not just adults in the faith but also becoming warriors for Christ. If there is any modern example of this it is in Zimbabwe.

PETA's ultimate nightmare

2007-04-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

ConocoPhillips and Tyson have combined forces to come up with a low emissions diesel made of diesel (of course) and animal fat. Get the story HERE.

Anyone who's read a college newspaper in the last decade has probably read an article on a kid who was "ahead of his time" because he ran his car on vegetable oil or something similar. What's funny is diesels can run on vegetable oil and similar things without modification. I'm not sure how these new "low-sulfur-emission" diesels would do, but the old ones ran great, especially on a mix of diesel and whatever.

Interesting to me in the story is that despite these two companies coming up with a semi-alternative fuel, there is still that left wing tendency to hate on corporations: "But some renewable-fuel advocates say ConocoPhillips will be able to take unfair advantage of a tax credit designed to create new refining capacity for clean-burning fuels, even though they'll be using existing refineries." Do you want it or not hippy?

What will PETA do with this? They already hate Tyson's guts as the largest producer of chicken meat in America. Now they have to figure out what they dislike more, killing chickens for meat or fictional global warming.

Move over Napolean Dynamite

2007-04-12T12:17:00.001-07:00

French candidate is himself shocking

2007-04-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

A French pres. candidate is "shocked" the Church's standing on sexual ethics and "that it is 'shocking' for the Church to teach that 'homosexuality is a sin.' He told the newspaper that sexual orientation is an innate characteristic. 'One does not choose one's identity,' he commented."

Two things of note that this guy missed: 1) Homosexuality itself is not sinful but disordered, whereas to act upon homosexual desires is sinful. This could be likened to pre-marital sex between a heterosexual couple. Since marriage between two members of the same sex isn't possible (via natural law) acting upon homosexual tendencies is always and everywhere wrong. 2) The all knowing and infallible science has not said that homosexualtiy is something you are just "born with." As a matter of fact Dr. Francis Collins, who heads the human genome project, has written that the opposite is true. Also, psychologist Dr. Dean Byrd writes HERE that more and more psychologists are discovering "sexual identity was far from fixed." Not only have studies shown that "re-orientation" works, but the American Psychological Association journal has said that re-orientation should be available based on these criteria:

"(a) respect for the autonomy and self-determination of persons, (b) respect for
valuative frameworks, creeds, and religious values regarding the moral status of
same-sex behavior, and (c) service provision given the scientific evidence that
efforts to change thoughts, behaviors, and feeling-based sexual orientation can
be successful."

I hate it when people, especially politicians run their PC mess at everyone just expecting them to jump on board and not ask questions. Guess again Frenchie.

Why Giuliani can put his candidacy where the rays of the sun ain't

2007-04-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Giul's on his work in the big apple after 9/11, but don't take us for fools now big boy. Get the story on his "contortionist act" HERE.

The final sentence says it all:
"Mr. Giuliani says people who don't like his position do not have to vote for him. Many social conservatives who view abortion as a make or break issue are likely to follow his advice."

Senate votes to kill more babies

2007-04-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

The senate passed legislation which would force American tax payer dollars to pay for embryonic stem cell research- which has been the least scientifically promising as well as the most ethically bankrupt.

I suppose that means they all dumped on s.30 which would have allowed federal dollars to be spent on stem cell research without the use of human embryos. I don't know why stem cell research which isn't morally challenged isn't supported over baby killing research. Aren't these the same folks on the left who want an end to animal testing, whaling and seal clubbing? But babies are okay right? Well, I suppose they would just contribute to the obvious global warming crisis... A good break down is at the Saginaw Seminarians blog.

Thank goodness Dubya has said he'll veto this again.

Legalized murder law that didn't get enough votes takes effect anyway

2007-04-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

President Silva of Portugal who claims he believes "that abortion is 'a social evil,' and urged efforts to encourage women not to abort" ramrodded through legislation to legalize murder in the form of abortion. Makes perfect sense right? I always thought if something was a serious "social evil" and gravely affected others, i.e. dying babies, then we shouldn't be allowed to do it. I guess that's why I'd never make it in politics- I give a damn. Get the story HERE.

The Hypocrisy of being Pro-contraception AND Pro-Marriage

2007-04-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

An excellent article by Patrick Danielson in the New Oxford Review called "Homosexuality, Contraception & the Defense of Marriage." Danielson shows that "The contraceptive ethos assumes that pleasure for its own sake justifies sexual experience, and this assumption effectively sunders the morally and socially indispensable twofold nature of human sexuality." Also "The case against homosexual marriage thus becomes an argument for the moral superiority of one form of pleasure usurping another: Homosexual sex is inferior, for example, because it does not involve the conjoining of generative organs."

Good article, give it a read.

Son of a priest who didn't get a Catholic education

2007-03-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

There's a story from the San Francisco Chronicle (suprise, suprise) about the son of a former priest calling for an end to priestly celibacy. Get the story HERE.

Something strikes me as odd, and I don't mean the fact that he doesn't know the difference between a dogma and a discipline: "As it turns out, the church's absolute celibacy dogma is relatively recent..."

Instead, its his ending that seems a bit familiar:

"Why leave the future of the institution to the anemic power of prayer when the
answer may be as simple as lifting the proscription on priests as patriarchs?"

Maybe its just me...

"Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the
kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you," he said,
"if you will bow down and worship me."

FOX NEWS HEADLINE: POPE SAYS HELL IS REAL

2007-03-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone thought Pope B16 believed that hell didn't exist, thank goodness Fox News has caught up with him and heard a sermon delivered in Rome where he announced that it did in fact exist. Get the story HERE. I'm sort of impressed that they wrote this up actually. I suppose it was to stir up a little controversy with the only happy stories Joel Osteen crowd.

I'm still trying to figure out why at the end of the story among quotes by people about hell they used a quote from Jean Paul Sartre- an atheist:

"Locked forever in a small room with two other people"— Jean-Paul Sartre,
"Closed Doors"

Oh well, I guess we atleast know what he'll be doing for eternity. He, Nietzsche and Marx probably.

Philosophy critique anyone?

2007-03-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

I was reading through reviews of Dr. Francis Collins' book The Language of God and in the very first review was an unconvinced atheist whose arguments are a tad suspect. The blue words are his, the red words are mine:

The first part of the book where he tries to present philosophical reasons for the existence of God is frankly, pathetic. Of course it is because you've already set the tone yourself. If you don't want it to be good it won't be.

Collins tries to present himself as fair and impartial but subtly denigrates nonbelievers with terms such as "materialists". Ah yes, "materialists." So snobbish of him to use the philosophically accepted term for atheist's theory of existence.

He quotes so much from CS Lewis, I kept thinking why am I reading this guy. I'm still wondering why you read Collins. Again, if you know you won't be convinved why read it?His two main philosophical arguments are completely unconvincing. First up, he tries the existence of "Moral Law" as evidence for God. But this is a joke. This has already been thoroughly explained by an evolutionary bias for altruism. I didn't know this. Well everyone, pack up your books and go home I guess. That whole "ethics" thing that was just a hoax. That so called "conscience" that pings you every time you want to do something "wrong" is just evolutionary bias. I guess that means that Hitler really was a fantastic leader since he was able to go "beyond" his natural bias. Or, maybe conscience exists... We are programmed to be altruistic and cooperative as this was required for us to survive throughout our evolution. Has this man never worked through Hobbes Leviathon and really thought it out? How can self-preservation a-la "pro-choice" be ethical yet ethics is an evolutionary bias towards altruism (think good of the group here) I suppose just another paradox of a wacky, random chance universe. It is instinctive at this point and gives us real pleasure. Yes, the wholesome pleasure of dying for the ones you love. Or in the case of soldiers, the ones you'll never know.

But Collins barely acknowledges this explanation. Next up he tries a "Longing for God" as evidence there must be a God, i.e how can you long for something that doesn't exist? But this makes no sense. We don't have a longing for God per se; we have a longing to understand things. First, I assume either Dr. Collins didn't explain the thought right or this guy wasn't paying attention. You can make two different distinctions among desires: 1) things which are "innate" desires- I thirst and desire something to drink 2) Things which are "artificial" desires-I really want that truck because its cool. In the case of #2 we understand that some people desire things and its possible that the thing doesn't even exist or that not all people may have the same desire. In the case of #1, however, we understand that all humans have that desire. Its innate because we all have that desire. As it turns out, when we talk about innate desire we realize that innate desires correspond to real things. We all want water, it exists. We all want sex, the opposite sex exists and it is possible. Again, the same isn't true about artifical desires. The thing doesn't have to exist not must everyone want it. A desire for a life after this one falls into the innate category as everyone wants it. It stands to reason that if every innate desire has a corresponding real thing that fulfills that desire then there must be an afterlife hence there must be some "thing" which gives us life after natural death. In the words Aquinas always likes to use- we call this "thing" God. For a more complete treatment and better explanation check out peterkreeft.com and look under his audio for his proofs for the existence of God.

Second, A desire for God does not correspond for a desire to understand things. I assume the author of the review associates Christian's desire for God with Greek or Roman explanations of natural events via mythology. A short course in theology should disprove this. Christian thought does not center around "Why does stuff happen?" nearly the way scientists do. Instead the focus is on an "us" and "Him" relationship meaning how we stand before our Creator and our Ultimate Judge.

He comes across much better when he moves into the scientific realm where he is in his element. He neatly debunks the reactionaries that desperately are trying to justify a literal interpretation of Genesis and the Bible. He gives a reasonably balanced view of the state of science in explaining the universe and where there are still major gaps in our scientific knowledge for example, what came before the big bang, and the anthropic principle. Good. I'm actually not suprised at this though. He's agreeing that fundementalitsts may be wrong on a literal interpretation on Genisis instead of commenting on whethere or not there was a decent argument put forth for I.D. or anything like that.

In summary his position is: 1. Science hasn't quite explained everything yet 2. People like to help each other 3. People want a God to believe in. Thus I will be a Christian. That's it. Sorry but I was expecting a little more than this for all the hype. Save your money. I'd say maybe this guy should leave the syllogisms to Socrates. I would put Collins' argument like this WARNING- NOT A SYLLOGISM:
1) If science had a reasonable explanation of existence it might be possible to show that God does not exist, but science CANNOT explain everything and in fact has considerable gaps which will probably never be filled, 2) Innate recognition of a moral standard among all human beings AND the fact that innate desires distinct from artificial desires MUST always have a corresponding fulfillment points towards the existence of a universal creator God, 3) It is reasonable and in fact probable to assume based on #'s 1 & 2 that God exists.

Note that these arguments don't end in the probability of the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, however I'd guess that's where much of the CS Lewis comes from that this guy didn't read.

Funniest Philosophy Video In The KnownUniverse!

2007-03-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

If you pick anything to look at today about philosophy, make this it. Absolute hilarity.

Good Pr0-life rap

2007-03-22T21:22:00.001-07:00

Catholic Cartoons

2007-03-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Its funny because its true. From the Catholic Cartoons blog.

Alas, I am but one of God's dupes...

2007-03-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

According to a recent article in the LA Times by Sam Harris, found HERE, "there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead... And yet billions of people claim to be certain about such things." I guess that whole "all the eyewitnesses who claimed it were willing to die gruesome deaths and claimed its truth all the way to the grave" thing must be irrelevant. Or maybe the fact that while hundreds of saint's burial places are pilgrimage sites and have been marked since the death of the saint, yet no such site exists (unless you're a self proclaimed genius like James Cameron) for the greatest religious figure ever. Only an empty tomb for Him. Foolish us.

Who can forget, as the article says "Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science, inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources." Hmmm, you mean all the funding that came from the Vatican for the majority of science projects until the late 1700's and all of the clergy who made the discoveries such as Roger Bacon who was one of the earliest advocates of the scientific method or Johannes Kepler who is famous for his laws of planetary motion. Nope, always in the way those religious folks. You know the type, the one's who funded Galileo. Of course it is the religious who inflame human conflict. Such as Stalin's murder of millions in the gulags of the Soviet death machine, or under Mao's Chinese regime. If you count their atheism as religion anyway.

Next coming to the plate is Sam Harris' idea that "Within every faith one can see people arranged along a spectrum of belief. Picture concentric circles of diminishing reasonableness: At the center, one finds the truest of true believers — the Muslim jihadis, for instance, who not only support suicidal terrorism but who are the first to turn themselves into bombs; or the Dominionist Christians, who openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death." The Dominionist Christians? Who are they?They're calling for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death? They must not be very loud, I've never heard of them or what they're evidently saying.

I think it must be Harris however who is moving down the line toward diminishing reasonableness because he says "There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know."

Question for Sam: if our "Friend" is only imaginary, how can something be ethical? The existence of ethics presupposes a natural law in which we know what is ethical and non-ethical. The existence of a natural law presupposes a natural law giver- a creator god. If that's not enough, how in the random-chance-organic-not-yet-ubermensch-material-world (Nietzche's "hell," just a joke folks) could anything be spiritual.

But the delusion continues: "Indeed, it is time we broke this spell en masse. Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos." Isn't this just a bit of a paraphrase of what Sartre said? Sartre told us that he was giving our lives true meaning by telling us that we were nothing. Harris is telling us the same thing. He says we are nothing but random chance and isn't that beautiful? How much further away from human intuitiveness can you get? A person's worth is in the dignity of their lives, but without divine purpose a person's life has no more dignity than the scum in a pond. Both are random chance but only one has the misfortune to know it. If however we have a divine purpose we are inextrincably linked to the divine Itself and we have greater purpose, the cosmos then has greater purpose, than could be imagined.

Next Harris slams the bible and koran by saying "Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain — from cosmology to psychology to economics — has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture." Isn't it interesting to know that this is false. What has the bible taught that cosmology disproved? The six days of creation in Genesis? Even Augustine at the end of his Confessions taught about the six days as being an allegory relating man to his place in the universe. Psychology? Freud's depression, caused partially by his fear of death with the thought of no afterlife, only upholds scriptures teaching of God love as a comfort to man. And I don't have the slightest what economics has to do with anything in his article.

The conclusion: "Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music." What evidence would suffice for someone who doesn't want to believe? Had Mr. Harris been in Fatima on the day the sun danced would he have thought it a "spell en masse?" Does Mr. Harris even think it prudent to believe his living room will light up with the flip of the light switch or that the sun will come up every morning? Be honest Mr. Harris, have you ever been to Iceland to know it exists or have you only seen a few pictures and heard about it back in your school days? What is sufficient evidence to you that Caesar lived or that Plato was a philosopher and not the alternate identity of a schizophrenic Socrates? Take the self-decevieing headphones off your dome and look at the evidence yourself, its there.

Reforming their own rainbow they ought!

2007-03-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

Pioneer Press has an article about a Gay-Catholic rally at which "They wore green sweatshirts and green beaded strings to honor the day, and rainbow pins and shirts with phrases such as "Catholic. Liberal. Faithful." to honor their lives." Of course they did, honor their own lives that is. When your only concern is to prove your own greatness rather than Christ's you can never hope to find Him. How can you ever look at Him when all you want to do is say "Look at me, look at me! Ain't I great just the way I am?"

What is it that they don't get? How many people have an inclination to be alcoholic? According to Narconon over 15 million people are alcoholics. Do we tell alcoholics to "be who they are" and tell everyone else to "accept them for who they are?" Of course not. We recognize a problem with alcoholism and we try to help the alcoholic who has the problem. The Church has shown (as have numerous philosophers from a standpoint of natural law) that homosexuality is a disordered desire which in itself is not sinful but when acted upon is gravely sinful. Such was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Retired archbishop Francis Hurley spoke at the rally saying "It's not about being orthodox or not being orthodox, it's about being sensitively aware" Of what? I would think the good archbishop would want us to be "sensitively aware" of sin and of endangering our souls. However with workshops at the event like "Lesbian Nuns: Steps, Stumbles and Strides," "Breaking Bread: Lesbian-Gay Parish Ministry" and "Gay Men in the Priesthood and Religious Life," I get the impression that's not what he meant.

I hope these people can see the beauty in the true colors of God's rainbow in the truth of the Church and stop staring at the rainbow they pinned on themselves.

Church of the Warm-Fuzzies

2007-03-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Alive and Young has a great post on "The Church of the Warm Fuzzies." It's hilarious.

Speaking of which, I saw a church sign the other day while Amy and I were driving to Pflugerville which read "Jesus loves you just the way you are." I guess they must have forgotten to read that part of the bible where Jesus loves us too much to let us stay that way.

Little Mr. Sunshine

2007-03-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

Its interesting to me how often Nietzche comes up in contemporary culture. Take for instance the movie Little Miss Sunshine. One of the characters takes a vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force Academy so he can become a pilot- only to later find out he is colorblind and turn his piloting and Academy chances to nil. This character's hero is Nietzche.

The fact that Neitzche is this character's hero doesn't make much sense in that the only parallel the character ever makes to the German professor is that he claims to "hate everyone," mimicking Neitzche's (and Sartre's) claim that "Hell is other people." Towards the end of the movie the character finally shows his love of his younger sister at a youth beauty pagent where he tries to protect her. Also along these lines, Neitzche probably would have seen the character's color blindness as a weakness and rejected the young man. All the while the young man may think himself as progressing towards being an "ubermensch," he finds himself falling far short.

In contemporary culture it seems that Neitzche is "in." I have yet to figure out how a philosopher (who was really a better philologist than philosopher) who believed us to be pointless accidents made of organic material is so popular in a culture driven by the importance of "me." Is it not a paradox to say that everything is about the individual but the individual is pointless in the end? I can, however, see his influence in contemporary society as the push for eugenics via stem cell research continues. Where Hitler left off with his scientific quest for the ubermensch, "progressive" politicians today applaude the advance of our own "superman" to come.

I suppose Neitzche got something philosophically right- his challenge that "if God is dead than why not [do as one wishes instead of the "moral" thing to do]?" Who's to say a thing is wrong if there is no such thing as wrong and right at all?

If God exists how can we ignore Him for the sake of politics? Isn't that what so many Germans did pre-Hitler?

Just a few thoughts I had after catching THIS story at Catholic World News about the Papal preacher denouncing Neitzche.

And, I enjoyed this post at the bottom of the article:
"God is dead- Neitzche...Neitzche is dead- God"
Worth a laugh I think.

Off for Spring-Break!

2007-03-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

Amy and I are going wine tasting in Fredericksburg, TX. I know I haven't been bloggin much over the last couple of weeks, believe it or not however I've just been more busy working all the time than I was last week working and going to school. Go figure.

Before I go, here's your Philosophical Power of the week:

Saint Anselm
1033-1109
Nationality: Italian

Group Alliances:
"Scoundrel" Schoolmen
"Thorny" Theists
"Belligerent" Benedictines
"Sadistic" Saints

AKA: Handsome Anselm
Dancin' Anselm
Anselm of "Count 'n' Bury"
An-Salmonella
Anselm of Canterbury

Powers: the power to preserve rectitude of the will for its own sake

Weaknesses: vulnerable to Gaunilo's™ Perfect Island® attack

Notes: The manufacturing process has painstakingly increased the perfection of these toys by giving them the property of existence. A consequence of the toys' high quality is that they are so expensive that they can be paid for only with money that is both fully divine and fully money.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen!

2007-03-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

The Beer Launcher via Catholic and Enjoying it is probably the coolest thing I have seen in a long time.

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

Plugging our ears

2007-03-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

Paul at Alive and Young gets it right as usual with his ad from God-

I use an mp3 player on my way to class fairly often just because I don't always want to listen to the next person over who's being way too loud about their weekend plans over the phone. I try to take the earphones out when there's silence around so I can enjoy it. I suppose I'm still guilty however of plugging up my ears.

Philosophical Powers Friday continues with a special I forgot to put up The Office on Wednesday edition!

2007-03-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

So, for my recovery of The Office Wednesday here's "Dwight's Speech."

And your Philosophical Power of the week is: Augustine.

Augustine- 354-430

Nationality: from Numidia, a Roman province in northern AfricaGroup

Alliances:"Nefarious" Neoplatonists
"Thorny" Theists
"Sadistic" Saints

AKA: Bustin' Augustine
Cussin' Augustine
A-Gustin' Wind
Aurelius Augustinus

Powers: cognition aided by divine illumination; shape shifting ability

Weaknesses: inability to do anything that will earn the divine grace necessary to make up for original sin

Notes: These toys come with with a 224-page minicomic, Concussions of Saint Augustine, explaining the character's origin and describing some of his amazing adventures!

Mahoney's Vibrancy Reigns

2007-03-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

If only Jesus had thought to express himself "vibrantly" to the apostles through dance or some other gesture I suppose the Church would have really taken off. Oh, wait it did. I wonder why the liturgy being "vibrant" had nothing to do with it...

Now if Cardinal Mahoney would figure it out.

Cheap Seats Spelling Bee '97 Montage

2007-03-06T17:27:00.001-08:00

Forest Ninja

2007-03-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy lately I haven't been able to post much. However, enjoy this little gem.

Friday's Philosophical Power

2007-03-02T12:24:00.000-08:00

Aristotle
384-322 B.C.E.
Nationality: Greek

Group Alliances:
"Angry" Ancients
"Vicious" Virtue Ethicists

AKA: Careless Aristotle
"Spare Us" Aristotle
Aris-Total Destruction
"Beware His Throttle" Aristotle
The Philosopher

Powers: walking

Weaknesses: some people think maybe he could have taught Alexander the Great a little more about diplomacy

Notes: The high quality of this product is ensured by the four causes at work in the manufacture of the toy: the plastic, the assembly line robots, the designers' creative ideas, and the profit from retail sales to spoiled children. Also, the following reasoning establishes that children will love the Aristotle action figure: All Philosophical Powers® figures are totally awesome. This toy is a Philosophical Powers® figure. Therefore, this toy is totally awesome.

Peter Denies Jesus

2007-03-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

James Cameron-- actually zombie!

2007-03-02T01:33:00.001-08:00

Get the scoop HERE.

Captain Planet's alter ego-- Al Gore

2007-03-01T23:49:00.000-08:00

As I procrastinate tonight and put off studying Latin (did you know that the word procrastinate comes from the Latin word "cras" which means tomorrow?), I want to offer some deep thoughts:

1) You may think you're studying while listening to John Coltrane, but you aren't. You are lost in the Coltrane.

and

2) Captain Planet was an agenda driven, green mulleted, Al Gore superhero. For some reason it just hit me today that I could recall an episode in which Captain Planet stopped a group of "evil scientists" from conducting experiments on sheep in which they tested the ability of sheep to adjust to rising temperatures and more intense UV rays. Why were they doing these "dastardly" experiments? Because as we all know the ozone layer has a hole which evil people started and will continue to increase and because our global warming crisis is caused by evil people who don't care about anything other than burning fossil fuels just for the hell of it.

As it turns out, the hole that would give us all cancer wasn't possible:

"Well, what about that Antarctic "ozone hole?" First of all, it isn't a "hole." The "ozone hole" is a temporary, chlorine- enhanced thinning of the O3 layer over Antarctica during our (northern) autumn months. It requires the following meteorological ingredients: (a) a lengthy polar "night" -- i. e., a prolonged absence of UV radiation. This allows (b) the buildup of chlorinated compounds, unmolested by UV, in the (c) "polar vortex" -- a vast, self-contained whirlpool of air over the Antarctic region. The vortex largely isolates polar air from mixing with air outside the region, thus diluting the chlorine concentrations.

Now add (d) super-cold, high-altitude temperatures, which causes ice clouds to form in the stratosphere. The ice crystals provide surfaces upon which chemical reactions between chlorine and ozone can take place much more rapidly and efficiently than by mere mixing in the air. Finally, add (e) the sudden appearance of the sun after the long polar night. This adds high levels of UV to the chemical soup, which breaks down chlorine compounds into their constituent elements -- such as highly reactive chlorine monoxide. The chlorine monoxide -- not the CFCs themselves -- then reacts on the surfaces of the ice crystals with ozone molecules, breaking them down.

A few weeks later, as the polar weather changes, the vortex breaks up, allowing the infusion of outside air into this chemical "soup" -- and soon, all the reactions stop. Ozone is then rapidly and naturally replenished by solar UV action on oxygen, and the "ozone hole" quickly refills.

If ANY of these ingredients are absent, you won't have ozone depletion. And the ONLY place that has them all is Antarctica. Even the Arctic region does not have as well-defined and isolated a vortex, because mountains there break it up. Nor do the stratospheric temperatures there get as cold...which means you don't get an abundance of ice crystals to act as a catalyst for accelerating the chemical reactions."

And as for the global warming issue, well I guess we'll see how long that will stay on the agenda I suppose. I'll let it go with this statement from an NAS scientist after the release of their 2001 report on climate change:

"One reason for this uncertainty is that, as the report states, the climate is always changing; change is the norm. Two centuries ago, much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling."

Finally,

3) " Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind."

New blog to the Blogroll of Catholic Blogdom

2007-02-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Its a funny one and good one. Its The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen. Check it out.

Gay rights group makes less sense than ever.

2007-02-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

According to an article on Lifesite "Ontario private schools are coming increasingly under the lens of homosexual activist groups for "homophobic" teaching stemming from the schools' primarily religious foundations, a report in Ottawa's homosexual news media indicated earlier this week." Get the story HERE.

So what I'm hearing is "Teach that homosexual life styles are good, no matter if and especially if it is against your religion." Somehow it just never hits these homosexual "rights" groups that when they demand that everyone see them as they see themselves they are really only trying to remove the rights of everyone.

The assault on the Church continues.

News Flash!-- Tomb of Jesus discovered 2000 years ago!

2007-02-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

For those who haven't heard the news, the tomb of Jesus of Nazereth was found 2000 years ago in Jerusalem! After three days under heavy guard, however, the body has apparently risen as the Christ himself has been seen and spoken with by many. More to come on this breaking news.

Seriously, for 200 years we've known where the tomb of Jesus has been-- with no body in it. Do you think the people who died gruesome deaths because of their faith in Jesus and knew where the tomb was because they were there could have screwed it up? I really don't think THIS can be taken seriously.

This isn't the first time someone claimed to know the true location of the tomb of Jesus. HERE is another that not only claims to know where Jesus is buried but also: 1) that he survived the crucifixion, he never died 2) he made his was to the India/Pakistan border because 3) the Pakistani people in Kashmir are the lost tribes of Israel. Oh yeah, and they claim that somehow St. Iranaes knew about it all along (but never told aaaanybody).

Wednesdays at The Office- CIA Dwight

2007-02-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination

2007-02-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

The Onion- "Defuse the ticking time-bomb known as your child's imagination before it explodes and destroys her completely," said child-safety expert Kenneth McMillan, who advised the HHS in composing the guidelines. "New data shows a disturbing correlation between serious accidents and the ability of children to envision a world full of exciting possibility." Get the rest of the story HERE.

Anybody want to take bets on how many years it takes before the government says something like this? BTW, for anyone who hasn't read The Onion before, its fake news.

Catholic Carnival 108

2007-02-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

Catholic Carnival #108 is up- Yeeha!

The Battle Continues

2007-02-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

The Pope spoke to the Pontifical Academy for Life recently and you can find the synopsis of his discussion with them HERE.

I just want to comment on a few things:

1)"The Holy Father expressed particular concern about 'the obsessive search for the perfect child.' The use of advanced biotechnology, he warned, threatens to unleash 'a new wave of eugenic discrimination.'

The Holy Father hit the nail on the head here. There's been such a push for pre-natal testing lately to find out if your child has "defects." Its a little too "brave new worldish."If they can fix something, for instance if your baby is developing a blood clot or something, then it is wonderful. If the outcome will be to "fix" the situation by killing a baby the if it has down syndrome then the testing needs to be stopped. God creates each child uniquely and for a special purpose and that is almost always especially clear of special needs children. Just ask their parents if they would trade their child for any other on earth.

2)"the Pope remarked that arguments in defense of life are based not upon sectarian religious beliefs but on 'the natural law written on the heart,' and therefore accessible to 'all people of sound conscience.'"

My first comment on this is that in a fashion it is sectarian religious belief in that natural law assumes a natural law giver. Although there are quite a few theist abortion advocates (and truly only God knows why) many are atheist and so this argument from natural law opposes their religious beliefs. That would be unless they still for some odd reasons still believed in a natural law but not God or a God.

My second comment is that it is odd that given our country's divisiveness over the issue of abortion it has from its beginning not only recognized the existence of natural law (and therefore implicitly God) but also it has understood the right to life as the first and foremost right given to man by his maker. Hence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It just seems interesting to me that our nation was formed because it felt denied so many rights and it felt compelled to list them and now we deny the first on the list to so many more...

3) "He listed the drive for legalization of abortion in Latin America, the use of 'new forms of chemical abortion under the pretext of reproductive health,'"

How is abortion helping "reproductive rights?" I just don't understand how killing the purpose and fruit of reproduction makes reproduction healthier. I guess I missed that class in Logic.

4) “Life is the primary good we have received from God, the foundation of all the others,” the Pope pointed out. The campaign to protect that gift “is a duty upon which the future of humanity depends."

Amen

Lite blog day

2007-02-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

I have a test in my Logic class this afternoon so today will be a lite blog day until this evening.

Philosophical Powers!

2007-02-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm running out of Terry Tate videos to use on Fridays I'm switching gears to a more intellectual pursuit: Philosophical Powers! Check out the site to find all your favorite philosophers and their newly buffed action figure selves. This weeks philosopher of the week is Plato.

Plato
circa 427-347 B.C.E.
Nationality: Athenian

Group Alliances:
"Angry" Ancients
"Rabid" Realists
"Ragin'" Rationalists

AKA: Sado-Plato
Play-Doh®
Plato the Great-o
Plato Never Late-o
Plato Makes Ya Wait-o
Plato Ya Love to Hate-o
Plato Seals Yer Fate-o
Plato Puts Ya in a Crate-o
Plato Ships Ya Freight-o
Plato The Pain Will Not Abate-o
Plat-OH NO!

Powers: talented dramatist, invulnerable skin

Weaknesses: his mentor was executed early in Plato's career, leaving him to come up with some pretty weird stuff on his own

Notes: Comes with Plato's Guide to Shadow Puppets: step-by-step instructions on how to make fun and convincing animal shapes with nothing more than your hands and a bright light! This fully-illustrated booklet includes Bunny, Dog, Bird, and Many-Headed Beast.

Plato figures are left unpainted, in deference to the popularly held notion that classical statuary was white rather than flamboyantly, gaily colored (notice the intimidatingly creepy empty-eye effect this creates).

Darwin's disciples and the culture of death

2007-02-22T11:01:00.000-08:00

Good article from the New Oxford Review about the how the slope has just continued to slip from Darwin's theory to eugenics and the foundation for the culture of death. Get the story HERE.

From my own perspective, it continues to boggle my mind how illogical the position is that

"The individual is 'nothing' and the species 'everything,' and therefore, Ludwig Büchner concluded, the smallest steps of progress in history or nature are marked 'with innumerable piles of corpses.'"

Even Jean Paul Sartre was quick to capitulate that without the existence of God there is no "good," not even a "good of the species." To have a particular thing be good for the species as these people mentioned in the article see it would mean that it is an underlying objective truth that they wish us all to agree upon that the continuance and so called "evolution" of the species is a good thing. An objective truth implies an objective truth upholder (a.k.a. a creator being) which is what they are attempting to deny in the first place. Unless of course they think it is just a subjective truth which they happen to all agree upon. In that instance however their argument loses power in that if it is subjective we can choose to reject their argument in favor of our own. No sense these people.

What all men must see before dating

2007-02-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

Via Mulier Fortis. If only I had read this as a young man...

The Dignity of Choice

2007-02-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

Walking through the Texas A&M campus means opening up oneself to bombardment from multiple fronts ranging from displays about modern farming equipment to the less common displays describing art in America. Recently I walked past a pro-life display showing very graphic pictures of aborted babies. The display gave facts about abortion, the common reasons given for procuring an abortion and information about the post-traumatic symptoms women usually experience after an abortion. Alongside the display there was something that seemed a bit odd to me. They had a board with butcher paper called their “Free Speech Board.” The purpose of this board was to allow anyone’s thoughts of the display, whether positive or negative, to be given and read by anyone who wanted to read it. I decided to make my way to the board and see what “free speeches” anyone had given. I found the usual pro-life and pro-choice slogans. One statement I read got me to thinking on my ride home. The statement was: “Dignity is Choice!”

It seemed rather obvious to me at the time that this statement was made as one on the side of legalized abortion. Now, however, I’m not sure. Most people who believe in things “pro-life” would agree that there is in fact dignity in choice. We enjoy a great distinction in fact among creatures of the earth in that we have what is called a “meta-mind” which means that we can think about our thoughts or the thoughts of others. It is our meta-mind which allows us to actually think through our choices and make the most, or least, of them. No other animal as far as we know has this ability besides us and so we enjoy a special dignity above other creatures in our choice making.

Most Catholic and Christian pro-lifers would also agree that choice is a great dignity because it is a gift from God. When confronted with the “problem of evil” as it is so called, the first defense is usually that of the dignity of free will. Free will is our ability to choose and that means that there is indeed God given dignity in choosing. My dilemma in finding the stance of the statement was only building now as I considered that there must be more behind the statement.

I decided to consider the label then. Why is it that if you support abortion you label yourself “pro-choice?” I have been told that it is because these people see an inherent right to choose to have an abortion. But can I not be pro-choice by choosing to go to work rather than call in sick? Why the name? I have always understood the label of “pro-life.” Pro-lifers wish to save the lives of the unborn. Pro-choicers however protect a thing we’ve already got, the ability to choose things. This being the case, that we already have the ability to choose things, shouldn’t they be a little more specific? Shouldn’t they be called “Pro-Abortionists” or “Anti-Lifers?” The only reasons I can think of for not using these labels is because they sound negative. If the label is accurate however in what it represents and gives a negative impression then maybe it should call attention to the thing it labels as being negative. Perhaps this is the key to understanding their label: the term pro-choice covers a multitude of negative actions.

On some level we are all pro-choice. I want to choose to eat dinner or not. I want to choose to go to bed at a decent hour or not. There is, however, an inherent understanding that we all have that tells us that not all choices are good. I know it isn’t good for me to eat too much because it is unhealthy. I know it is bad to choose to stay up too late because I need to get up early for work. These things in mind, we are all pro-choice while we all understand what it means to make a good or bad choice. Remember thought that there is dignity inherent in choice even if the choice is bad.

Therein is hidden the real dilemma for the label “pro-choice.” Calling a movement “pro-choice” defines nothing while the term “pro-life” does. A more accurate label than “pro-choice” for abortion rights advocates is “pro-abortion” which has a naturally negative connotation. The term pro-choice is meant to do away with the negative connotation associated with being against life and instead implicitly portrays the pro-life movement as anti-choice which is clearly not the case as we are all pro-choice in the fact that we cannot go throughout our day without making a choice or two here and there and we do so willingly. If we do away with the mask of a label and focus on what we’re are choosing, we must look to find out if it is a dignified choice. The answer to the question seems to be “no” based on the fact that the rather deceitful title was necessary in the first place. Let’s not jump to conclusions though.

What removes the dignity of choice with abortion? I think it is ultimately reducible to this: If abortion is killing a baby, and killing a baby is morally wrong, then abortion is morally wrong. Is a bad choice a dignified choice? I would not think so, though it remains that our free-will to choose is dignified regardless. Of course many people think that it is a more complicated matter than this but I disagree on the basis that whether or not one meant to have a child (a.k.a. failed contraception), killing that child is still wrong. In the case of rape or incest, what has the child done to deserve death in the womb? The child has done nothing and so killing it would be wrong even if the circumstances of its conception were rather sinister. What if the life of the mother were at stake? I would think it a very selfish and uncaring mother who would not give her life for that of her child, even the child she has never met.

What else can we say if the decision made is undignified or unlawful while the dignity of choice itself remains? We can say, and rightly so, that removing the legal status of a bad choice does not negate the dignity of the choice itself. For instance, it is illegal for me to go 75 miles per hour on the local highway, but I can still choose to go 75 mph or even faster. Murder is against the law, but I can still make the wrong decision to commit murder. So regardless of law the dignity of choice remains in the individual’s decision. Applied to abortion the dignity of choice is never removed from choice while the dignity of the choice made, the dignity of the decision that is, is unquestionably wrong.

How far will the pro-abortionists go? No doubt many have heard the story of a young girl in Italy who was given no choice. Valentina made a mistake. She, 13 years old, became pregnant by her boyfriend who was 15 years of age. Valentina valiantly chose life for her child rather than commit murder by having an abortion. Then she was court ordered into an abortion. Valentina has since been committed to the psychiatric unit of a children’s hospital because she has attempted suicide saying “You have made me kill, and now I kill myself, I kill myself.” Throughout the murderous process the progressives who routinely proffer choice were deafeningly silent. What happened to the call for her dignity of choice?

My final opinion of the statement left by the anonymous author must be that either it was written by a pro-lifer or by an illogical pro-abortionist. The dignity of choice is only fully appreciated when it is realized in the choice of the Divine Creator to give life to what was previously only dead matter that has been made into the Creator’s own divine image. Surely the author must have realized this truth and wanted to be sure that we all understood it. I’m sure that’s what her pro-choice statement was really about, right?

There goes my teaching position

2007-02-20T11:28:00.000-08:00

I guess Rome won't be calling on my services any time soon:

You are 67% Scripture literate!

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Why I quit engineering

2007-02-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

Why did I quit engineering to major in philosophy? Because my tests looked like these. Thanks Anchoress for putting them up. BTW, I almost fell out of my chair when I saw these.

Believe it or not

2007-02-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

The untrue told story of how I saved Rome last week after finishing my homework. Or perhaps what I did while I should have been doing my homework.

Hmmm, I wonder if I could get extra credit in Latin by turning this in?

Why Asteroids and the UN have me ready for Lent

2007-02-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

We live in a time where a holocaust of children is happening world-wide and governments, for the most part, don't care. In our day, nations won't take action to help others until they have the definition of the problem nailed down- is it genocide or is it not? Thanks be to whomever it is due for the United Nations, however, because they have stepped right up to tackle the real issues: asteroids.

This Lent I will watch the Passion of the Christ, I will probably read Lenten meditations, and I will resolve to be at more daily masses. This Lent I will also learn from the UN. You see, while 1 in 3 three children in the US is murdered for the sake of "choice," there is a 1 in 45,000 chance that we will be struck by an asteroid on April 13, 2036 and this fact has the UN prepared to spend 300 million dollars (probably a low ball estimate) to find a way to possibly keep it from happening.

What can possibly be learned from this for Lent? Focus. Progress toward the final goal. Reality.

Chesterton has said we cannot be making "progress" unless we have something to make progress towards. How can we move forward if we can't see where we are now? Lent is a season for reconciliation, a season of progress towards God's infinite love. God is love-" Deus Caritas Est." The world wants us to see itself as a light to guide us, that's why the UN called itself a "Beacon of hope, peace, and prosperity." We find our light, our "city on a hill" in Christ and His church. Even our own country, which I love dearly, was described by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln as the world's "last, best hope." But our last best hope is Jesus, and we should not forget.

I don't think the UN is all bad, despite my talk. I do think our country is the greatest in the world but I also know, however, that we are only pilgrims in this world and that our race here does indeed have a finish line. That finish line cannot be seen by the light of this world but by the light of another, in another. The light of the world sees some problems, but the light of truth reveals all. I hope that by seeing the lackluster light of the world this Lent I can see the spectacular glory present in the light of the Lord and humble myself to ask for His divine mercy.

During this season of Lent may the Lord bless us and keep us in His loving light whether we are guarding the lives of the unborn from a holocaust of "choice" or an asteroid.

Amen

Sticks and stones can hurt...but words can hurt you too

2007-02-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

Wonderful article written by Alice von Hildebrand about the use of words and their "propriety or impropriety." She discusses masterfully how getting across an idea by dumbing it down doesn't do it justice and more. A good read. Find it HERE. Take this little piece as an appetizer:

"The words we use when referring to the intimate sphere are particularly revealing: They can express vulgar coarseness or tender respect. There is a four-letter word that is used only by those whose coarseness must make the angels weep; there are "scientific" words which, by the very nature of science, are neutral. (This is why we can go to a physician and speak about very intimate things in a fashion which is in no way offensive to purity.) For Christians -- blessed by their belief in the Dogma of the Incarnation -- the body has acquired a nobility that calls for an adequate expression. When the Angel Gabriel sent by God asked the sweet holy Virgin to become the mother of His Son, she did not reply, "How is this to be, I have never been sexually active." Rather, she said, "I know not man." One could give a whole university course on purity by meditating on these words."

Worship me for I am Christ

2007-02-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

Good article by New Oxford Review on Christ's presence in the congregation. Some people do indeed make themselves the focus of the Liturgy rather than Christ. Read the story HERE. My favorite part is:

"In a delightful spoof cleverly entitled "The Monstrance Proposal" (The Wanderer, Sept. 21, 2000), he [Fr. Joseph Wilson] writes: "We understand that we need to emphasize the Presence of Christ in the gathered community at least as much as, if not more than, we emphasize Him in the Eucharist. To this end, we are removing the choir section of our church, that section behind the current altar, and replacing it with a platform on which we will build a 20-foot tall, six-seater monstrance — a monstrance capable of sitting six parishioners in the glass chamber. We will then begin perpetual adoration. Six parishioners at a time will take turns climbing up and sitting in the monstrance while the rest of us will take turns worshiping Them." If Mannion and others are right, why not?""

Case of the Mondays

2007-02-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

Every Monday morning before Latin class I'm thinking like Wally. I guess its just a case of the Mondays.

So It Begins

2007-02-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

The looming dictatorship of liberalism is waiting in the wings. The city of Oakland evidently considers the words "natural family" to be offensive and will prosecute the use of the words as a hate crime because its "descriminatory to homosexuals." Get the story HERE.

Terry Tate Fridays Continues with Draft Day

2007-02-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

We Decide 2008

2007-02-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, I give. Its time to start talking about candidates for the Presidential election. This being my first blog on this stuff I'm only going to give candidates from each party. I'm not going to discuss issues yet. HERE is a wiki link that gives some info on the election. Let the games begin!

Republican Nominees (Official, Unofficial, Exploratory Committee formed)

Democratic Nominees ( Official, Unofficial, Exploratory Committee formed)

Third Parties (Same Stuff as above)

If anyone is willing, I'd love to hear someone's particular favorites and why. I get about 20-50 hits a day so I know y'all are out there. Currently mine is Senator Brownback because of his pro-life voting record and because I perceive him to have high moral values.

In the throes of homosexual moral subjectivism- relativize this!

2007-02-14T21:25:00.000-08:00

Good editorial HERE from the Catholic World News site. I especially love the introduction to the article which says:

"The UK Tablet continues its crusade for Brokeback Montanism, most recently by means of a curiously argued essay urging the Church toward a Vichy-style capitulation that acknowledges the de facto coercive power of sexual Leftism..."

There is no possible way I could have said it better. The article that the editorial refers to from the Tablet (a UK periodical) is HERE. The Tablet article leads with:

"Misunderstanding the depth of post-socialist commitment to equality and diversity, especially that of sexual orientation, was a serious mistake in the Church's handling of the gay adoption issue, according to a leading Catholic human-rights lawyer."

I guess I just never understood truth as dependant upon someone's commitment. And all this time I thought truth was objective. Huh. Then again maybe truth is subjective to the masses, the mob. At least that's what I glean from this sentence:

"Might Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O'Connor and his episcopal brethren benefit from a board of lay Catholics to advise them on their contact with secular society?"

As you might have guessed, this article is full of less-than-stellar stuff. Its arguments range from naivete of church teaching to down right disregard for it. The arguments are embarrassing in the sense that someone was actually paid to write this article...and they're catholic. For instance, in the case of naivete of church teaching, the author asks "The Church's stand left many questions to be answered. Are homosexual acts a "grave depravity", as the Vatican says, if within the context of a loving, monogamous relationship." Of course they are still wrong, the appetite is still disordered. Is it okay to over eat at every meal of every day as long as the food is prepared properly and at the proper times? Of course it isn't okay. Rather than spend my time refuting this, as it isn't what I'm most concerned with, go HERE for the church's position.

The Tablet article does get something right:

"The fact that this ideology is one of tolerance, mutual esteem and respect for diversity is why its imposition is not something of which its proponents are proud. But if liberals are truly committed to this perspective they need to be willing to recognise that they are being fundamentalist in exactly the way in which they often accuse others of being. The inevitable consequence is that the victims of this determination to impose mutuality of respect feel that they are being coerced, "forced to be free" as Rousseau might have put it."

Exactly. If its true that values are subjective, for instance "respect their gayness if they want to be that way," then you are stuck with the fact that it is your subjective view and not mine. If I on the other hand see their homosexuality as a disordered appetite, the subjectivist cannot tell me I am wrong, though that is exactly what occurs.

Then the wrong way again goes the Tablet. To answer their rhetorical "How should the Church react to the challenge of this liberal vision of society?" it answers:

"It should recognise, first, that it is much better than the rampant capitalist world of competing selfish individuals that might otherwise be on view, and second, that it seeks a much better world than one in which all are allowed to discriminate to their heart's content. And finally, with one large exception, the liberal vision of society is very close to that of the Church, with progressives and Catholics being almost always on the same side on such key issues as esteem, dignity and opportunity for all. The one exception, the radically different approach taken to sexuality, is often more to the fore among the senior church leadership than it is on the ground at parish level."

Okay comrad, first off, when and where did the Church say that the "rampant capitalist society" was perfect? Never has the Church proclaimed that a capitalist society was Utopia, as a matter of fact the Church has never said that any earthly government in particular could rule perfectly.

Second, who is discriminating wrongly? If it is true that a homosexual couple is leading a life intristically disordered towards evil by the type of relationship they commit to, then would it be wrong to stop it? Of course it would not, it should be stopped. Should we allow child molestation because some individual feel an orientation towards it? No. Is it discrimination to say they can't molest the child, which is only what their "unchosen orientation" leads them to do? If the same argument is applied to the molestor as the homosexual couple than it certainly is discrimination. The assumption by the author is that it is not intristically disordered and therefore alright for the couple to have the child. And btw if the afformentioned couple is morally sound because values are subjective, then keep your lib hands to yourself and stop touching my conservative, personally owned, "subjective" values. Also, who is "discriminating to their heart's content?" I have yet to find the man who thinks that "real" discrimination is okay. This as opposed to the neutering of the world as I will discuss in a moment. No one, even in our non-commie, non-socialist world is going around discriminating (again validly discriminating) against people just for the sake of discrimination itself.

Thirdly, the church is not nearly as close to "progressive values" (an illogical statment in itself) as the author might want us to think. The church does not see the value of an individual as "we are the same" but rather as our value in our uniqueness as men and women. We have intristic value in that we are created in the image of God, and unique value in that we are created differently than one another as male and female. If we are biologically different, does that not imply differences in natural tendencies? Does a man not have a penis and a woman a vagina naturally tending toward activity for males and a type of passivity for females.? For example, a man, by nature, tends toward more aggressiveness than a woman. A woman tends, by nature, to be more compassionate than a man. Is this not true? The liberal "progressive" ideology on the one hand demands that we neuter ourselves so that there is nothing to discriminate, but the Church says we cannot discriminate precisely because we are different, and that discrimination lies not in treating someone differently than another (because we are all different from one another) but in treating someone in a way less dignified than befits a child of God.

Also, the "radically different approach taken to sexuality..." is not different among upper and lower ranks among Church officials, the teachings are the same at all levels. Instead, it is only that the Church's teachings are more readily mutilated in order to fit "progressives" likings at the parish level.

The final paragraph of the tablet's article begins with: "The liberal vision of a tolerant society based on mutual respect but also on a rejection of intolerance is not one to be feared." If you adhere to the liberal values discribed previously they mean. But what if you don't? It seems to me that based on the "anti-discrimination laws" being laid out in Euro-topia that I will eventually be arrested for thinking differently, for actually realizing that there are gender, racial, and cultural differences. I wouldn't fear the vision if I thought that Huxley's "Brave New World" was the place I wanted to go.

Finally, the last statement made by the Tablet article reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw a year or so ago that read "The road to Hell is paved with democrats," meaning of course that good intentions alone don't make a thing work out right. Read their statment: "Liberal society knows exactly where it is going; does the Church?" I would say yes, the Church knows where it is going, to the truth- Jesus Christ. And do I agree that "Liberal society knows exactly where it is going?" Yes I do, straight to Hell.

And now..."The Office Wednesdays!" Hooray!

2007-02-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

So that's what my poly sci prof meant about "euro-democracy"

2007-02-12T23:27:00.000-08:00

My last political science professor, for my course in American Gov't. (who was, of course, not an American citizen) used to go on and on about what America could accomplish if only it would "censure" the stupid people who are holding America hostage. By that of course she meant pro-lifers or any one who thought homosexuality was a disordered appetite and not an entitlement. She used to praise to the highest degree the "progressives" in Euro-topia. I can now see why.

Evidently in Portugal the law is really only a "quasi-law." The law requires 50% of registered voters to turnout for a nation-wide referendum to be binding, however after only 40% or so showed to vote to loosen abortion laws the prime dictator...oops, I mean prime minister... said they would "move forward with plans to allow legal abortion." Amazing how that works.

Years after Jim Crow laws were finally abolished because they were discriminatory, "progressives" have decided world-wide that there's no reason to fool with them. Instead of hiding your discrimination by only allowing certain groups to vote, just do what you want no matter what happens. Not enough people show up for your culture-of-death-fest-2007? Well who cares, we're going to call it a success anyway!

Oh yeah, read the story HERE. Almost forgot to link it.

I think this might move up the Doomsday clock another minute or so.

Miracles a plenty

2007-02-12T22:48:00.000-08:00

Calling Dr. Dawkins (should you exist :)). Do you believe in miracles? Dr. Albeel Mangi now does. Get the story HERE about a boy whose heart stopped beating then started again two days later with no possible medical explanation. So if I recall from THIS post:

"1) If a supernatural thing has occured then supernatural things must exists

2) If a supernatural thing has never occured then God or supernatural things do not exist and materialism must be true...or God has not chosen to act/ supernatural events simply have not happened yet

3) There are documented cases where supernatural things have occured, therefore supernatural things are true and possibly God exists."

I would classifiy a medical miracle of this nature as "supernatural" in origin. You provide the "therefore."