Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
The Morality Quiz
Kerry:
--- Quote from: David on November 30, 2007, 08:18:16 pm ---Well, in the Roman Catholic faith there are some conditions which must be met before you are forgiven by God.
In order for a confession to be valid:
1.You must confess ALL your sins since your last Confession. If you happen to forget some during Confession, it's okay, but you must make a sincere and honest attempt to confess them all.
2. You must be sincerely sorry for your sins. Only you and God knows if you are truly sorry or not. If you are not sorry, you are wasting both your time and the priest's time in the confessional. The priest absolves you, but it is GOD who forgives you.
3. You must try to NEVER commit these sins again.
4. You must do your penance. I remember when I was a kid, the priest would give much larger penances. 10 rosaries, 20 Our Fathers, 20 Hail Mary's, etc.. The last time I went to Confession, the priest gave me 2 Our Fathers and 2 Hail Marys for my penance. That was it! Back in the old days, they would make the penitent stand outside the church covered in ashes. Things have changed since then.
--- End quote ---
Thank you for making that point, David. According to RC doctrine, only God can forgive you your sins. However, it is done via the sacrament of penance/forgiveness in confession, as administered by an anointed priest.
Regarding excommunication (raised earlier by Gary), only the Pope can excommunicate someone. It cannot be done by a priest. To be excommunicated by the Pope means you no longer have an immortal soul, according to RC doctrine.
Kerry:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on November 29, 2007, 08:23:25 pm ---A relative of mine fits all that RC criteria. When I brought up the issue of transubstantiation and how kinda gross that sounded, she merely replied, "But I poop Him out again." ;D
--- End quote ---
And for precisely the same reason, I will not be ordering a dish of this dessert, when next I visit New York (as reported in Time magazine):
"$25,000 is the cost of the world's most expensive dessert. Made of milk, cocoa, 5g of 24-karat gold, gold-flecked whipped cream and shavings from a rare chocolate truffle, it's available at New York City's Serendipity 3, which has yet to sell one. By comparison, the price of the 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid is $25,200."
At the very least it is decadent. At the worst, it's immoral, considering world poverty levels. It doesn't bear thinking about how many starving people could be fed with the cost of that one dessert. And it's just going to be pooped out, anyway! ::)
serious crayons:
I know. But then, as philosopher Peter Singer always reminds us, many starving or sick people could be saved on what regular old middle class people spend on normal everyday luxuries.
One of his famous dilemmas: You see a chlid standing on a train track with a train bearing down. You could save her, but to do so you'd have to leave your $25,200 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid on the tracks and have it totalled. Would you save the child anyway? Just about everyone would say, of course.
Well then, he responds, how can you spend $25,200 on a 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid, knowing that by doing so you are spending money that could otherwise be used to save countless starving or sick children?
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: ineedcrayons on December 01, 2007, 12:37:11 pm ---I know. But then, as philosopher Peter Singer always reminds us, many starving or sick people could be saved on what regular old middle class people spend on normal everyday luxuries.
One of his famous dilemmas: You see a chlid standing on a train track with a train bearing down. You could save her, but to do so you'd have to leave your $25,200 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid on the tracks and have it totalled. Would you save the child anyway? Just about everyone would say, of course.
Well then, he responds, how can you spend $25,200 on a 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid, knowing that by doing so you are spending money that could otherwise be used to save countless starving or sick children?
--- End quote ---
I guess a good response to Mr. Singer would be "Guess you haven't seen the price of gas or cars lately, eh?"
That's just one of those rhetorical philosophical statements. $25K isn't going to stop children from being sick or from starving. In order for that to happen, entire governments need to change, people's values need to change and populations need to be educated and at times uprooted from areas that are prone to disease/starvation.
One family's or 100 families $25,000 donation isn't going to help any of that.
Shasta542:
I think that things like spending 2500 a night for a hotel when you can be quite comfortable in an 80 a night room are the things I'd think are extravagant. Maybe the extra 2420 couldn't help a lot of people, but it could help a couple.
Old story:
One morning an elderly man was walking on a nearly deserted beach. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean.
Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, "Little boy, what are you doing?"
The youth responded without looking up, "I'm trying to save these starfish, sir."
The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?"
Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish into the water, said, "It will make a difference to that one!"
Everyone can help someone on a small scale. No one can help everyone.
I don't think we are required to sleep on the floor or eat beans all the time, but we don't have to have the BEST of everything with no thought of helping others. Most of us can't do anything GLOBALLY, but LOCALLY -- we may be able to make a difference in small and large ways.
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