Eugenics

is a mild change of pace. Chesterton was battling (intellectually) with eugenicists in the early Twentieth Century. The discoveries in Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War drove the movement into social disrepute. They're back and they're getting more and more plain about their ambitions for the "new and improved" human race.

WILL Darwinists get back into the eugenics business?: "So ... now, James Watson, who has declared that (Darwinian) evolution is both a law and a fact, has since proclaimed,

... black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that 'equal powers of reason' were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

And this hard on the heels of Richard Dawkins* spilling on about the 'fantastic success' of the 'Jewish lobby.'

Some people wonder what is happening. Bill was wondering whether Darwinists would get back into the eugenics business big time. Having watched H.L. Mencken-style Social Darwinism morph into sociobiology and then get rebranded as evolutionary psychology, I have some idea what's driving the trend: power

Once people gain the right to simply ban opposing ideas, they can afford to be more up front about what they really think.

By the way, in case anyone wonders about whether evolutionary psychology is simply rebranded sociobiology, well, Dawkins apparently said that himself, as I noted in By Design or by Chance?.

What we sometimes miss is the underlying reason why Darwinists behave this way. If you believe that human beings have minds that are made in the image of - or are a local image of - a divine mind or cosmic law, then the reason why racism is wrong is obvious: Race relates to externals, not eternals. Yes, some people will believe that and still be racists. But here's the difference: to the extent that theists are racists, they are wrong. I don't mean politically incorrect or contrary to the pieties of liberalism. I mean wrong about the very nature of our universe.

They are wrong even though some qualities are distributed unevenly across ethnic groups. Body type, for example, plays a key role in determining the competitive sports in which one might excel professionally, and we get our body type mostly from our forebears. But none of that speaks to the value of a human being, only to how he might best use his time.

But what if you are, as most committed Darwinists are, a materialist? Then a human being is simply a meat puppet. At that point, distinctions that would be discounted in the light of eternity actually determine a person's value. Or else he has no value, in which case ...

Of course, decent people won't just accept that. No, instead, they pass dozens or thousands of political correctness rules against taking the inevitable consequences of Darwinism and materialism seriously. And they flirt with thwarting their self-imposed rules. Or else they concoct grand, improbable schemes like this one and this one, to dispense with nature altogether. But that is all they can do, and in the long run, it leads to absurdities.

Legitimized racism is an inevitable consequence of materialism, and I expect the Darwinists know that as well as anyone else. I suppose at this point their social policy arm (liberalism, in its current form) had better start drafting a whole bunch more daft political correctness rules. It's either that or eugenics.

*Note: I think what upset people about Dawkins's comments is the assumption that there is something unusual about a successful Jewish lobby in Washington. There had better be a successful Jewish lobby in Washington, let me tell you. Any interest group that doesn't have a successful lobby in Washington is a non-starter. Canadians have one of the best lobbies in Washington. Why not bash us then, and give the Jews a rest? Because, for whatever reason, many people don't hate us and they do hate Jews, whom they commonly do not even bother to distinguish from the Israelis."

(Via Post-Darwinist.)

Parsing Abortion Statistics and the Law

Pushing statistics about illegal activities already seems to breach common sense. Where does one register one's illegal activities? And grossly distorted statistics have been a weapon in the war between abortion and unborn life. When statistics about illegal activities are produced to prove that abortions should be legalized, my internal bull*** detector is going off full-tilt.

Parsing Abortion Statistics and the Law: "The report made headlines across the globe, but even those generally sympathetic to its conclusions acknowledged the difficulties in performing a study like this. And the conclusions, as a result, seem to rest on very shaky foundations.
The subject is the new global study on abortion just published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and [...]"

(Via FIRST THINGS: On the Square.)

St. Ignatius of Antioch

is the first to describe the Church as Catholic and his writings are some of the earliest we have, outside of the canon of Scripture itself.

St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Early Church: "

St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Early Church | Kenneth D. Whitehead | From
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic:
The Early Church Was The Catholic Church


Sometime around the year 107 A.D., a short, sharp persecution of the
Church of Christ resulted in the
arrest of the bishop of Antioch in
Syria. His name was Ignatius. According to one of the harsh penal
practices of the Roman Empire of the day, the good bishop was condemned
to be delivered up to wild beasts in the arena in the capital city. The
insatiable public appetite for bloody spectacles meant a chronically
short supply of victims; prisoners were thus sent off to Rome to help
fill the need.


So the second bishop of Antioch was sent to Rome as a

condemned prisoner. According to Church historian Eusebius (ca. 260-ca. 340), Ignatius had been bishop in Antioch
for nearly forty years at the time of his arrest. This means
that he had been bishop there while some of the original
apostles were almost certainly still alive and preaching.



St. Ignatius of Antioch was conducted first by land from
Syria across Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He was escorted
by a detachment of Roman soldiers. In a letter he sent ahead
to the Church of Christ in Rome, this bishop described his
ardent wish to imitate the passion of Christ through his own
coming martyrdom in the Roman Colosseum.

Continue reading...

"

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)

Abortion

is a topic I don't usually like to read or talk about much anymore. I have been active in the Pro-Life movement and retain my membership in the local chapter. Why I'm less than enthusiastic for the continuing controversy is a topic for another day. But my Philosophy course is now dealing with this from a number of philosophers' perspectives, so I'm once again wading into the arguments for and against.

So, contrary to my reading and writing habits, I'll be tapping into this debate for a little while, at least.

What greets the uninformed observer first, I think, is the bewildering range of reasons and rationalizations on both "sides" of the issue. Where these reasons intersect to make reasoned discussion possible is, or should be, the stuff of our studies. Jonah Goldberg provides an interesting, if philosophically unsatisfying, justification for being "pro-life".

Jonah Explains WHY He's Pro-Life: "It seems to me that more of this kind of article from Jonah Goldberg is what is needed from those of us who are pro-life. Jonah does not get on a high horse and give us a lecture. He explains his thinking on the matter, admits (and in the end, even embraces) his doubts, and--in general--gives us a very clear and very human accounting of his position. Without working at being persuasive, he persuades. What I like most about it is that his points are fresh and down-to-earth. It is time for a fresh and down-to-earth discussion about abortion. The reason so many people shut their ears when the subject of abortion comes up is because the rhetoric is so over-heated on both sides. There are so many who claim to know more than they know and they are so venomous about it. Regular folks rightly cringe (and if it's talk radio, they change the dial) when the subject comes up. But I suspect they might have a different reaction to Jonah's piece.

Another thing to keep in mind is that--with the exception of the partial birth debate--the leading arguments were formulated and crystallized in the 70s and 80s (and perhaps on into the early 90s). Of course, that doesn't make the salient points any less correct--but it does mean that they are unfamiliar to a large segment of the voting public. Now is a good time to re-cast them and Jonah sets what I think is exactly the right tone. (Link to this Entry. Comments. Add Your Comments.)"

(Via No Left Turns.)

The Philosopher and the Pro-Lifer

If Mark is right, this might not bode well for the next three weeks. We'll be spending five sessions considering different philosophers takes on abortion. It's almost a certitude that none of them will exhibit abhorrence. So, how do rational, self-interested people (the type of the modern philosopher) deal with primitive reactions like Mark's? Maybe I should forgo wearing a Choose Life t-shirt to class...

Cinema Relativiste It's not possible to be fair and balanced...: "Cinema Relativiste

It's not possible to be fair and balanced about abortion. That's because abortion is simply and solely evil. The attempt to be 'fair and balanced' will mean that, on the one hand, you will show what abortion actually is (and turn people's stomaches, filling even many pro-choice people with grave doubts about the hideous thing they are supporting). Then, on the other hand, to compensate for the horrors you have just shown the viewer, you will go off and find a few extremists and crazies and try to pretend that they stand for all prolifers.

If you are skilled at numbing your conscience, you will then feign agnosticism about the whole thing. If not, your screaming conscience will shout until it is heard and you will admit that the fringe 'prolife' crazies who shoot abortionists are a tiny minority representing only themselves, while every abortion supporter in the world is, in exact truth, fighting to make sure that the horrors you just witnessed in that operating room will be repeated millions upon millions of times.

There only two possible responses to abortion: abhorrence or deeper and more complex corruption of conscience. There is no 'fair and balanced' view of it. None."

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Do selfish genes explain why you want to hear about your great grandfolks?

This post caught my eye, in part, because I was ruminating earlier today on how we identify family. For me my biological father is a matter of remote interest. When I talk about my father to people, it's my step-father I'm referring to. My brother and sisters are, technically, half-siblings. But, having been raised with them, and having thought of us all as family, the simpler titles are the more natural. So, I, too, agree with the anthropologists on this point: family is a social, more than a genetic, construct. Though, I hasten to add, it's still natural either way.

Do selfish genes explain why you want to hear about your great grandfolks?: "An anthropologist offers a critical look at the claims of evolutionary psychology that your selfish genes cause you to care more about your relatives than about other people (because your kin have more of the same genes). Evaluating Harvard cognitive scientist Steve Pinker’s attempt in 'Strangled by Roots' to account for the current American craze for genealogy by evolution, poster Rex notes that human groups do not even have fixed ideas of who their kin are:

The overall plot of 'Strangled By Roots' will be familiar to any one familiar with evolutionary psychology: a New Field Of Research has been opened up that sheds Scientific Light on a previously untheorized and salaciously quirky bit of human life. The Social Scientists, of course, with their Social Science Models, have got it wrong, but luckily New Experiments have revealed the hidden evolutionary basis of said quirky behavior.

Unfortunately—alas!—however adaptive this behavior once was, it no longer suits the rigors of modern life and is currently the source of many social woes.

This time around its kinship. In the article Pinker claims that 'for all its fascination, kinship is a surprisingly neglected topic in the behavioral sciences.' While 'many social scientists have gone so far as to claim that kinship is a social construction with no relation to biology' others disagree. 'Genetics and evolutionary theory,' Pinker says, 'predict that the biology of kinship should have biased our thoughts and emotions about relatives in several ways'—for instance, that we like to share resources with them (this helps perpetuate their genes, including the genes we share with them).

[ ... ]

Pinker’s argument sounds plausible at first—especially if you don't know anything about the centuries-old literature on kinship or lack in-depth knowledge of the cultural complexity of ours species. In Pinker's case the problem is mostly naivete. ... Pinker's failure to review the literature on the topic can be blamed on many things, but our failure to write it is not one of them.

[ ... ]

But let me get to the main point: there are two main problems with Pinker's argument. First, there is that we have no evidence of what social organization was like deep in our evolutionary past. Of course we can imagine what they might have been like, but speculation is not science—especially for someone sufficiently serious about intellectual rigor that they feel the need to conduct experiments to prove the obvious fact that people who are raised together feel related. So his claim that feelings of kinship were once nontrivially adaptive in the evolutionary past but no longer are is in fact based on speculation. There is nothing wrong with speculation—indeed, it is all we have to go on with in some cases—but this point needs to be flagged.

The second problem is with Pinker's claim that kinship is currently no longer adaptive. The problem here is that Pinker, as philosophers say, 'proves too much'. For, as he himself shows and anthropology has already demonstrated, folk theories of relatedness and accurate biogenetic reckoning are so loosely coupled as to be only tenuously connected. In fact they are so tenuously connected that one wonder why he thinks they are or should be connected at all, except for his assumption (based on speculation) that they must have been in the past. Let's take a closer look.

Well, I won’t spoil any more of it for you; it's a great and instructive read, showing that different groups of people have very different ideas about how you should know who your kin are. And the fact that so many of these ideas are not based on degree of biological relatedness at all should be enough to sink the selfish gene theory.

Incidentally, the current North American craze for genealogy most likely relates not to remote human evolution but to (1) the fact that much more information is available, plus (2) the fact that the population is aging. Older people tend to be more interested in that kind of thing, and (3) After four or five generations, non-aboriginal North Americans are becoming more comfortable with the past their ancestors escaped. They can afford psychologically to find out more about it. They may even feel flattered or morally justified to learn of circumstances that were once a source of shame. Such is the veil that time draws over suffering ....

Now let me make two things clear here: I am not claiming that our evolutionary heritage has nothing to do with the way we view things. Indeed, it is quite easy to show the opposite. Humans, (unlike chimpanzees), are predominately right-handed. The fact that so many languages use 'right' to mean good or clever (righteous, dexterous) and 'left' to mean bad or awkward (gauche, sinister) is surely related. Similarly, 'up' is generally a fortunate direction and 'down' an unfortunate one - surely that relates to the fact that an upright stance is normal for humans.

So far, so obvious. But what happens when we seek to go beyond that? The key problems I see with evolutionary psychology, as generally practiced by - for example - Steve Pinker, are,

1. Speculation. As Rex notes, evo psycho explanations for human behaviour are usually speculation based on what we suppose life was like hundreds of thousands of years ago. And the practices for which we DO have documentation vary so widely that it is hard to place much confidence in the speculation.

2. Cherrypicking. Can anyone explain to me why, if selfish genes govern our behavior, so many men have had children with slave women and then treated those children with indifference, while doting on their legitimate offspring - irrespective of fitness? Oh yes, I am sure one speculation or other can be pulled out of a hat to rescue the selfish gene. But it would be more economical to assume that fatherhood is, in large part, a social idea and is not necessarily driven by a genetic imperative governed by natural selection.

3. Suspicious last-minute rescues. One theory has it that men play the field because their selfish genes want them to have as many children as possible in order to get themselves spread around. When I point out the obvious - that men who play the field usually do NOT want a whole pack of kids following them around - the reply is, 'Well, that's modern. We’re in charge of evolution now. But back in the old days, ... ' In other words, the times for which we do have information don't count, only the times for which we don't.

Of course, I am out of sympathy with the whole evolutionary psychology project because the underlying message is that people are not motivated by their culture but by their genes. I am on the side of the anthropologists (culture) on that one because I think the latter have more and better evidence. In other words, being human does not give us a specific culture (selected by our genes in order to spread themselves, in the evolutionary psychologist's view). It gives us the capacity to form a culture. Cultures may or may not contribute to survival or spreading genes. If they don't, they won't be around long, but we need not suppose that therefore the successful cultures were selected by anyone or anything for that express purpose. That's an attribution error.

In a longish section of The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard and I look at these questions in relation to religion, and argue that the same thing applies there."

(Via Mindful Hack.)

Mom’s House

The wife and I visited there this year (on the Grand Farewell Tour). It's history is actually fairly recent, in terms of years. It was discovered, based on a vision of Blessed Ann Catherine Emmerich, in the late Nineteenth Century. Who can say whether or not it's really Mary's House? But the pilgrims flow through it, day after day. Do they really care about the history? Or is it the idea of praying in Mary's House that's important to them?

Mom’s House: "

Turkish Daily News takes us to the ‘House of Mary’ in Ephesus.

"

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

Natural Law

There's an on-going discussion of Natural Law over at Mirror of Justice:

Natural Law: "

My friend Kenneth Slattery, C.M., a Vincentian at St. John's University in New York, offers these thoughts on the exchange between Robert Araujo and Rob Vischer (see here, here and here):

'God has a plan for all creation and, of course, the human person fits into that plan.' God's plan for us is natural law, which is imbedded in our nature and discoverable in our nature.' The intellect does the discovering: it discerns what we are and, therefore, how we ought to act.' Natural law governs all human conduct and that includes activity in the political arena.' Pope Benedict wisely reminds us that natural law must underlie life in a democracy; natural law must govern all political activity.' Indeed, it is also noted that not all natural law truths are equally knowable.' Murder is clearly a grave moral evil.' No one can miss that.' On the other hand, a person may be invincibly ignorant of the fact that contraceptive intercourse is immoral.' Certainly, it is the task of the Church and philosophy to elucidate remote conclusions of the natural law.'

"

(Via Mirror of Justice.)

Sexiest Women in the World

This post refers tangentially to Maureen O'Hara. Now there's a sexy woman. Can any of the current crop keep up with her and still keep their clothes on?

It's a Bad Bad Bad Bad World: "

' '' Mr. Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, believes that the world is a bad job.' So bad is it, that people who still believe in an objective and ultimate Goodness must be brought to heel by the power of the state and by something called 'education.'' So ugly is it, that people who still believe in an objective and ultimate Beauty must recant.' Then, when the whole 'unscientific' question of goodness or beauty is out of the way, all may indulge themselves in deeds that are neither good nor bad nor beautiful nor ugly.' And that would be a good and beautiful thing.

' '' Mr. Dawkins' principal reasons for believing that the world is a bad job can be expressed simply enough: animals eat other animals, and people die.' That these things are not news to peasant Christians seems not to occur to him.' If I live in Monday and have to die on Tuesday, that fact alone seems sufficient to pronounce the world bad.' One might as well ask whether, though I should have to die on Tuesday, my getting to live on Monday is not sufficient to pronounce the world good.' I rather like my Monday, and I suspect Mr. Dawkins likes his, too.' But people die: therefore it is absurd to hope in a God who promises a conquest of death.' He might as logically have argued, people live: therefore it is natural to hope in a God who promises life, and that in abundance.

' '' Such people as Mr. Dawkins pretend to be terribly sensitive to the bad -- but I wish they were more sensitive.' A man who gapes at pornography is not therefore sensitive to sex; he is probably well on his way to making himself insensible to it.' If Maureen O'Hara were to walk into his living room, in ordinary dress, such a man might hardly raise an eyebrow.' His pulse would keep on at its dead rate.' He would not notice her sex, speaking through the lilt in the voice, the slenderness of her arms, her teasing manners, her light step, her attention-commanding womanhood.' If Mr. Dawkins really believed that the world was a bad job, rather than just being angry with those who don't agree with him, he might eventually get around to wondering whether that badness included the part of the world known as Mr. Dawkins.' That is, he might conclude that he himself is a bad job.' Then he might do as Job did, and curse the world -- not God -- from his knees.' I'll take seriously someone who says the world is bad -- if he says it from that posture.

' '' The same kind of insensibility is to be found in Christopher Hitchens, who used to say that Mother Teresa was a selfish woman.' She only fed and cleaned and nursed the untouchables of Calcutta because it brought her pleasure to do so.' Now that it turns out that she suffered worse than her patients did, he says that she was brought to despair because she supposed that God might not exist.' Here Hitchens sets himself up as a skeptic, when really he is insensible to doubt.' It never occurs to him that Mother Teresa might have suffered, not because she feared that God might not exist, but because she was certain that Mr. Christopher Hitchens did.' I'm not being facetious here.' Hitchens is only playing at skepticism -- he draws a nice protective fence around himself.' If he were really a doubter, he might come round, as Chesterton says, to doubting himself.' He might have wondered whether his existence were the cause that someone else should doubt the existence of a benevolent God.' Had he done that, he might have understood a little bit about Mother Teresa.

' '' They remind me of my college days, when it was the fashion to hole up in a room with some buddies, listen to music to be miserable by, indulge in some depressive substance, and talk for hours on the rottenness of life.' For the refutation of which, the best remedy is not an argument but an open window, a kick, and a laugh.

"

(Via Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments.)

Even the Skeptics are Warming Up

Bjorn Lomborg is notorious in Environmentalist circles as a skeptic about Global Warming. But He seems to have warmed up to the Global Warming thesis, while insisting that economically sound solutions should be supported.

Thanks to Kevin Miller at Heart, Mind & Strength.

Natural Law and Biology

So here's another take on a modern attempt to defend Natural Law:

A Gnostic Heideggerian Existentialist Agrees (in a Limited Way) with Darwinian Larry: "Arnhart is certainly right that, for St. Thomas Aquinas, natural law has a biological foundation. He's also right that the Finnis attempt to defend Thomistic natural law without nature is implausible. I do think MacIntyre unrealistically narrows the gap between us and the dolphins as 'dependent rational animals.' There's a huge difference between our eros or love and dolphin and chimp eros (which is only loosely called eros). We're both much more independent and much more deeply dependent than our fellow creatures. Let me add that the distinctively Thomistic position is particularly difficult to defend these days. Here's one reason why: For both Locke and Darwin, reason or words are just tools. For Locke, they're for the preservation of the free individual, and for Darwin the preservation of the species. For St. Thomas, they're for a lot more than that. (Link to this Entry. Comments. Add Your Comments.)"

(Via No Left Turns.)

Speaking of Whole Persons

It occurs to me that the theology of Dominic Crossan may also suffer from a kind of dualism. The Resurrection of Jesus is understood in classical Christianity as the re-union of Body and Soul, and, therefore, the un-doing of death. Death's significance, unlike in platonic philosophy, where the body is the prison of the soul, is it's breaking of our natural unity; it's breaking of us.

All of this was inspired by this article.

Scientists Don't Need No Stinking Philosophy

It seems we're on a roll, and not a very good one, at that:

I’m Creating Artificial Life . . .: "

I read an article earlier today about a scientist, Craig Venter, who believes that the artificial chromosome he has created from lab chemicals will be able to take over a donor bacterium cell in order to replicate and metabolize. While the construction of an artificial 381 gene, 580K base pair chromosome has not been done before, I wonder why this announcement comes prior to verifying that this chromosome will in fact work as he plans.

While it appears to me that at this point the concerns here are more over safety than morality, what does cause me pause is the attitude he seems to display in the comments attributed to him. Venter told the reporter that this is:

‘a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before’.

The phrase ‘philosophical step in the history of our species’ seems quite misplaced for a scientist. What does he mean by this? At most here, as I understand it, is that if he is successful he may coax a cell of one bacterium species to replicate according to the genome of an artificially assembled chromosome that was based upon another bacterium’s genetic sequence which had been pared down to the minimum they think necessary to support life. I suppose that this could mean that he thinks that this project in some way brings man more to the level of creation ex nihilo? If this is what he is getting at, it seems that he ought to keep his day job or go back and take some classical philosophy.

The final quotation is just as vexing. He states:

‘We are not afraid to take on things that are important just because they stimulate thinking,’ he said. ‘We are dealing in big ideas. We are trying to create a new value system for life. When dealing at this scale, you can’t expect everybody to be happy.’

Well, again, it seems that his purpose is not so much for improving life and healing disease, but in dealing with’big issues’ and ‘trying to create new value systems for life.’ Perhaps this might be the reason for his early announcement. A failure might dampen or even put the breaks on his ability to deal with big issues and create new value systems. For that he needs media attention. If his primary interest for the sake of the science and medicine, the artificial chromosome construction would probably be sufficient even if he cannot get the last phase to work.

I dunno. This sounds to me more like the ‘science’ of Richard Dawkins than Louis Pasteur. That is, the abuse of science to promote an ideology. I don’t want to say megalomaniacal ideology but does this not smell like an attempt to wangle an apparently significant biotechnical achievement into a bully pulpit for promoting what seems to be a Nietzschean world view in which Venter is the ubermensch? I wouldn’t mind being wrong here.

"

(Via COSMOS-LITURGY-SEX.)

Notre Dame 20, UCLA 6

Between this and the Canucks winning one, I have something to be grateful for.

Notre Dame 20, UCLA 6: "Goodbye, monkey (on back)! The offense isn't brilliant, but the defense has been and is good enough that if they're given any chance at all, the games can be a fight. Hopefully this will give 'us' the confidence we need to be competent the rest of the way. We'll need it, as next week the (hated, loathed, abhorrent) Boston College team comes to town."

(Via The Chess Mind.)

Speaking of Bioethics

Which is the main area we will explore in our Moral Philosophy course, here is an article by Professor May on Theology and Bioethics. So, does this mean that you need a theological perspective in order to fully understand Natural Law?

Well, it seems that philosophical anthropology precedes, in some sense, moral philosophy. We must first know who and what we are before we can determine what, if anything, is right and wrong for us. And a basic question must be answered. If you break my arm, are you hurting my body or are you hurting me?

Many modern philosophers apparently have, consciously or otherwise, a dualistic understanding of humanity. For them we are divided into two categories: human beings (all of us) and human persons (the conscious, possibly rational, component of the population). Only the latter have value of some sort. For them, before rational consciousness we are things. And our bodies, which pre-existed us, in effect, are our instruments, over which we have dominion: "It's my body and I'll do what I like with it".

The opposing view, reflected, perhaps first, in Jewish Scriptural anthropology, is that we are a unity. Our corporeal existence is us. We are our bodies. And when you write abstruse, verbose posts early on a Sunday morning, you're not just hurting my head; you're hurting me. So there.

Moral Controversies: Pure Philosophy?

Once we get past the Mid-Term next Wednesday, which will test our knowledge of four significant moral philosophies (sans Natural Law), we will then move on to specific controversies. Abortion and Euthanasia loom large on the horizon until December.

Since, in philosophy, religious reasons would be deemed irrelevant, secular reason will have to be the chosen ground. That makes sense when you look at the class, never mind the larger world of philosophy. A great variety of ethnic backgrounds are evident. The idea of a single religious tradition uniting this motley crew seems unlikely.

So a good start might be looking at the variety of secular viewpoints that support the pro-life position. First, an interview with an atheist; a link to the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League website; then Feminists for Life; and, finally, Libertarians for Life.

Libertarians, Atheists, and Feminists, oh my!

Trial Marriage or Living in Sin?

Many years ago, in a previous millennium, I was making meaningless small-talk with a friend. She had lived with her boyfriend for several years before they married. So I said something conventional, like, "That way you two got to know each other even better before you got married and that's a good thing, right?"

She surprised me by a glum, yet angry, response, "I never knew him. When we got married he became a different person". They ultimately divorced and she took their child with her.

With that in mind, have a read of the review of some data from the scientific data about cohabitation, with and without marriage. With the easy divorce laws and social toleration of "living together" we have started a vast social experiment, the ghastly results of which are bearing down on us fast.

Natural (Moral) Law

Our textbook has a selection from Thomas Aquinas, which isn't part of our reading. And the manuscript, again unassigned, somewhat dismissively calls it Command Law theory. And that phrase is the only reference the professor has made to Natural Law theory at all. The manuscript seems to be arguing that Natural Law theory can be ignored because only Catholics believe it. Is that a philosophically rigourous argument?

Pope on Natural Moral Law (Vatican Info. Service): "POPE UNDERLINES IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL MORAL LAW

VATICAN CITY, OCT 5, 2007 (VIS) - This morning the Pope received members of the International Theological Commission, who have just completed their annual plenary meeting, held in the Vatican from October 1 to 5 under the presidency of Cardinal William Joseph Levada.

In his remarks to them, the Holy Father recalled the recent publication of a commission document on the subject of 'the hope of salvation for children who die without receiving Baptism,' and expressed the wish that it may 'continue to be a useful point of reference for pastors of the Church and for theologians,' as well as providing 'assistance and consolation for the faithful who have suffered the sudden death of a child before receiving' the Sacrament.

Turning to focus on 'natural moral law,' a question being examined by the commission, Benedict XVI indicated that the doctrine on natural law 'achieves two essential aims: on the one hand, it makes it clear that the ethical content of Christian faith is not an imposition dictated from outside man's conscience, but a norm that has its basis in human nature itself; and on the other hand, by starting from the basis of natural law - which of itself is accessible to all rational creatures - it lays the foundations for dialogue with all men and women of good will, and with civil society more generally.'

The Pope then highlighted the fact that nowadays 'the original evidence for the foundations of human beings and of their ethical behavior has been lost, and the doctrine of natural moral law clashes with other concepts which run directly contrary to it. All this has enormous consequences on civil and social order.'

What dominates today, he continued, 'is a positivist conception of law' according to which 'humanity, or society, or in effect the majority of citizens, become the ultimate source for civil legislation. The problem that arises is not, then, the search for good but the search for power, or rather the balance of power. At the root of this tendency is ethical relativism, in which some people even see one of the principal conditions for democracy because, they feel, relativism guarantees tolerance and mutual respect. ... But if this were true, the majority at any given moment would become the ultimate source for law, and history shows with great clarity that majorities can make mistakes.'

'When,' the Holy Father proceeded, 'the fundamental essentials are at stake: human dignity, human life, the institution of the family and the equity of the social order (in other words the fundamental rights of man), no law made by men and women can subvert the norm written by the Creator in man's heart without society itself being dramatically struck ... at its very core. Thus natural law is a true guarantee for everyone to live freely and with respect for their dignity, protected from all ideological manipulation and from all arbitrary abuses of the powerful. No one can disregard this appeal.

'If,' he added, 'by reason of a tragic clouding of the collective conscience, skepticism and ethical relativism managed to annul the fundamental principles of natural moral law, the very democratic order itself would be profoundly undermined at its foundations. Against such clouding - which is a crisis for human, even more than for Christian, civilization - the consciences of all men and women of good will must be mobilized, both lay people and followers of religions other than Christianity, so that together they may make an effective commitment to creating ... the conditions necessary for a full awareness of the inalienable value of natural moral law.'

Benedict XVI concluded by stressing that 'the advance of individuals and of society along the path of true progress' depends upon respect for natural moral law, 'in conformity with right reason, which is participation in the eternal Reason of God.'

AC/NATURAL MORAL LAW/COM-TI VIS 071005 (650)

"

(Via Catholic Analysis.)

Judge not, Lest Someone's Feeling Be Hurt

Our pastor invited me to join the Generations of Faith program he was starting up last year or the year before. I initially said yes, grateful to have a chance to contribute to parish life. Then I looked up their website. When I couldn't find any reference to the Catechism, I decided this was more of the feel-good, judge-not, know-nothing school of modern catechesis. (Can you tell I don't approve?) Is this the sort of thing that Rich is writing about below?

The parish is the content: "The catechetical establishment around these parts is a big fan of 'whole community catechesis.' You'll see it promoted in archdiocesan publications, advertised in bulletins, and practiced by DREs and RCIA directors. Whole community pioneer Bill Huebsch is a frequent leader of local workshops, and the October 'Clergy Communications' (scroll down to page 5) indicates he's back in town -- Dayton to be precise -- on October 25. In an essay that begins with a hilarious excerpt from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Ignatius Press author and critic Donna Steichen explains what whole community catechesis is and why you should avoid it:

Jul 2004 (CWR) - In Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh’s haunting novel about Catholic aristocrats in 1930s England, Rex Mottram, Julia Flyte’s crass, spiritually tone-deaf fiancé, seeks to become a Catholic in order to gain acceptance in her world. Rex neither knows nor cares anything about eternal truth. He means to listen without judgment and agree to everything, just to win the approval he wants, swiftly.

After a few meetings with Rex, Father Mowbray, a priest famed ‘for his triumphs with obdurate catechumens,’ expresses concern to Lady Marchmain, Julia’s devout mother.

‘I shall be dead long before Rex is a Catholic,’ he said…. ‘The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are.…these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn’t know existed. Take yesterday.

‘He’d learned large bits of the catechism by heart, and the Lord’s Prayer, and the Hail Mary. Then I asked him as usual if there was anything troubling him, and he looked at me in a crafty way and said, ‘Look, Father, I don’t think you’re being straight with me. I want to join your Church, but you’re holding too much back.’

‘I asked what he meant, and he said, ‘I’ve had a long talk with a Catholic—a very pious, well-educated one— and I’ve learned a thing or two. For instance, that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East because that’s the direction of heaven, and if you die in the night you can walk there. Now I’ll sleep with my feet pointing any way that suits Julia, but d’you expect a grown man to believe about walking to heaven? And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a cardinal? And what about the box you keep in the church porch, and if you put in a pound note with someone’s name on it, they get sent to hell? I don’t say there mayn’t be a good reason for all this,’ he said, ‘but you ought to tell me about it and not let me find out for myself.’’

‘What a chump! Oh, Mummy, what a glorious chump!’ shouts Cordelia, Julia’s impish little sister. ‘Oh, Mummy, who could have dreamed he’d swallow it? I told him such a lot besides. About the sacred monkeys in the Vatican—all kinds of things!’

The kind of religious education practiced by Cordelia Flyte is now called ‘faith-sharing,’ ‘faith formation,’ or ‘adult faith-formation.’ Its style, familiar to veterans of RCIA or Renew I and II programs, is also the heart of ‘whole community catechesis.’ It may well be the wave of the catechetical future.

‘Faith sharing’ means gathering the relevant community in jolly social groupings and encouraging them to tell each other what they believe. No one is permitted to object to another’s belief, or to tell anyone else what he ought to believe; that would be 'proselytizing,' which is oppressive. By contrast, simply talking of one’s ‘faith journey’ is liberating. However uninformed one’s opinion might be, participants are assured that it serves ‘to further the reign of God.’

"

(Via Ten Reasons.)

Christopher Derrick (1921-2007) Requiescat in pace

I have a couple of his books; sorry to hear of his passing...

Christopher Derrick (1921-2007) Requiescat in pace: "

I just received news that Christopher Derrick died yesterday. Derrick was an exceptional writer and thinker who wrote a number of books, several of them published by Ignatius Press, including Church Authority and Intellectual Freedom (1981), C.S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A study in proto-ecumenism (1981), Sex and Sacredness: A Catholic Homage to Venus (1982), That Strange Divine Sea: Reflections on Being a Catholic (1983), Too Many People: A Problem in Values (1985), Words and the Word: Notes on Our Catholic Vocabulary (1987), and
Escape from Scepticism: Liberal Education As If Truth Mattered (2001).' The short bio on the jacket of the latter work states:

Christopher Derrick was born in England in 1921 and educated by the Benedictine monks of Douai Abbey in Berkshire, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, under the tutorship of C.S. Lewis. Mr. Derrick served as an' R.A.F. pilot during World War II. He was on the administrative staff of the University of London from 1953 to 1965 and has served as literary advisor to major British publishing houses. His is the author of countless articles and books.

• Here is a bibliography of Derrick's books. I'm not sure how complete it is.
• 'The Desacralization of Venus,' an essay by Derrick that appeared in the September 12, 1981 issue of America.
• A brief 1965 piece by Derrick on C.S. Lewis.
• A lengthy quote from Derrick's Escape from Scepticism.
• A recent article from the Thomas Aquinas College site that quotes Derrick, whose book Escape from Scepticism was inspired by his visits to TAC.
• A review in This Rock (Dec. 1990) of Derrick's That Strange Divine Sea.

"

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)