I Don't Want to be Like THEM

please remember I have my own beliefs and personal religion and I do not follow another man's interpretation of the Bible - I follow my own. I am asking you I guess to interpret your spoken religion for me in some way I can understand because it truly confuses me. After 10 years of Catholic school and no good answers to my many questions ( and being expelled from the school for having them ) I simply don't understand.

How can you condone killing in any form ??

Yes, if you don't kill them first they might kill you if you don't find a better way. This is true. But is it life at all costs and is breathing simply more important than goodness ? Is this what the Bible teaches. Can we really take the simple words ' Thou shalt not kill " and add a caveat to fit our will ? Is there somewhere that God said that breathing is more important than the eternal life of your soul ?

The martyrs died because they wouldn't even so much as utter a word against God to preserve thier lives and to that we exalt them to sainthood. But that seems to be only for the saints. Us everyday people need to live to a ripe old age at all costs . . . including murdering other humans on command from someone who has set himself above the will of God.

Even as a society here in this country, we have agreed upon strict legal rules on what constitutes self-defense but when we step foot out of this country in a controlled mob then its a whole different set of moral decisions we follow. Its ok to kill then in controlled warfare even when the enemy is not imminent.

If they choose to mutilate thier young girls it is thier own business and we can only hope to enlighten them to stop or show them a cleaner and better way. They don't believe in curcumcision at birth either I dont believe and they might well find the act mutilation of an infant and well, thats fair enough and sure sounds awful too. So what that we can tell them why we do it - they can tell us why they do what they do also.

We do not have the perfect religion or all the answers. We do not have the perfect society either. There are certainly many places where our society fails. Free Speech for example. Because we have free speech in this country, our children are exposed to things they couldn't possibly understand that are quite detrimental to thier emotional well-being but well its a free country and we allow it. Our great democracy has some real holes in it also when the popular vote means nothing and the electoral vote carries the weight. Have the people truly spoken ?

Anyway, I love you Renee and respect you very much which is why I choose to address you in this quest for knowledge. I am not calling you wrong only trying to explore the hard questions, the slippery slopes of our existence. Other societies don't seem to have such slippery problems. They see things much more clearly and its very hard for me to stand here and call them wrong. They are not wrong - only different.


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Morgan, this is the Catholic perspective on "the just war":

Quote :

The Catholic Church and the moral law teaches that the waging of war is not in itself unjust. St. Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, taught that a just
war is "not only excusable but also commendable" because it is undertaken "in the defense of [one's] country against enemies that would invade it." In such a war "every man fights not for the defense of himself out of a private
affection for himself, but out of Christian charity for the safeguard and preservation of all the others."

However, three conditions must classically be met for a war to be just (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 40, Art. 1):

1) It must be declared and waged by the lawful authority of a sovereign entity.
2) It must be fought objectively for a good cause (defense against an unjust attack, recovery of something unjustly taken, or punishment of an unjust aggression.
3) It must be fought subjectively with the right intention, to arrive at a just peace, a just order of things, given each nation its due (not for
greed, cruelty, etc.)

In prudence (practical wisdom), four circumstances must also pertain:

1) the good to be gained by restoring justice must be proportionate to the evils that can be anticipated
2) it must be as certain as can be that there really was an injustice committed
3) the injustice must have harmed major, and not just minor, interest of the nation injured
4) war must be the sole means available of re-establishing justice, after all peaceful measures were unable to remedy the situation

Only a defensive war can be justified. However, a nation that takes the initial step to war when it is certain that an enemy is about to attack immediately, can be said to be waging a defensive war.

In the waging of war, unjust means must be avoided. Means may be unjust because they are forbidden by the natural law (as would be the case of a direct attack on the civilian population), or by the positive law, such as
the use of poisoned gas. However, if one belligerent violates a statute of positive law, the other is free to do the same.

As is evident, it is not possible for both sides to be objectively justified in a war. But it is possible for the citizens of both nations to be in good faith, and to be convinced that their cause is just. The individual citizen must take as his norm the general principle that he is
obliged to obey his own rules unless he is sure that what they comment is unjust. Hence, he must go to war if commanded, unless he has the sincere
conviction in his conscience that the war is unjust.

One must also remember that the State has its proper realm of activity. "The Almighty," said Pope Leo XIII, "has appointed the charge of the human race between two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over
divine, the other over human things. Each in its kind is supreme.... Whatever is to be ranged under the civil and political order is rightly subject to the civil authority. Jesus Christ has Himself given command that what is Caesar's
is to be rendered to Caesar, and that which belongs to God is to be rendered to God." Inhabitants owe undivided allegiance in civil or political matters to the government of the country in which they live. Their allegiance to the Church is confined to purely spiritual matters. The Catholic religion teaches that the State has divine authority, as well as the Church.

Given these parameters, it can be argued that the Iraq war is a just war. However, given these parameters, it can also be argued that the Iraq war is NOT a just war.

And that's where things get sticky.

HOWEVER, the church also teaches that difference over war and capital punishment, which can be viewed as logical outcomes of a person's (country, organization, etc) own aggression and therefore just consequence, do not hold the same moral absolute as Euthanasia and Abortion. In fact, there is even great effort afoot now to withhold communion from those actively supporting Abortion rights.

I hope this gives you some response to the church's official teachings. Let me know if you'd like some further research done.

Yep thats what got me kicked out of Catholic school.

Where exactly is God's teaching in that statement ?

I guess I'll just never understand.

As for Capital punishment well thats a whole nuther slippery slope isnt it. I see it as society saying its ok to do as a group what its not ok to do as an individual, therefore I see capital punishment as mob mentality no different than a hanging party. But well, thats just me I'm sure.

Sigh

Somewhere life must be better. I'm guessing maybe Tibet or even better . . .Bali. Sigh . . .


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among the fields of bali........................

sigh

Heder

You know I love you. People come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts that never, ever go away. Kahlid did that for you and you have done that for me.

Morgan I love you so very much my friend !!!

more so than you could ever know....you too have made a huge impact in my life...and inspired me in more ways than one....

I would be a lesser person not having known you...

dont ever change !!!



I love you

heder