Author Topic: The Morality Quiz  (Read 42681 times)

Offline Kerry

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #80 on: December 01, 2007, 08:20:47 am »
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. 

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.
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Offline Kerry

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #81 on: December 01, 2007, 09:12:20 am »
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

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!  ::)
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #82 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?


Offline delalluvia

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #83 on: December 01, 2007, 01:07:34 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?

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.

Offline Shasta542

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #84 on: December 01, 2007, 01:40:07 pm »
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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Offline delalluvia

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #85 on: December 01, 2007, 01:51:06 pm »
I don't own a car, and I don't drive.  So I know how difficult it is to get around without one.  I imagine that it would be very hard to find and hold down a good job if you lived in a rural area without a reliable car, since you wouldn't have any public transportation to turn to.  So if you gave up your car for charity, you might become a charity case yourself, and that certainly wouldn't solve any problems. 

But the real point of this question may be how can you spend money on anything you can do without when you know there are needy people in the world?  I don't have a lot of money, but I do spend some of it on things I don't really need in order to sustain my life.  But books and movies and the internet, and little things like an attractive and comfortable sofa, etc., ...these things do sustain my spirit.  I do believe that I would be miserable if I lived in a shanty, slept on a mat on the bare ground, and ate nothing but beans.  I might get some satisfaction knowing I was able to give a few hundred dollars a month to charity, but still I'd be pretty depressed, and I'd likely soon lose my humanity and desire to help anyone.  I might even lose my desire to live.

I spoke of how I believe that morality flows from love -- love in the greater theological sense, not emotion -- back in the death penalty thread.  One of the things I learned while studying this form of ethics in school is that love comes from a possition of strength.  You must first love yourself before you can love anyone else.  And althought there are some saintly people who could love themselves and still force themselves to live in a shanty and eat beans, most of us couldn't do that without hating ourselves, and in short order we'd be hating the rest of the world, too.  And no charity would flow from that.

Gary   

The writer Isak Dinesen wrote once that one of the worst tragedies in life was poverty.  It kept one from being one's self.  Meaning, scrabbling every day just to find food and shelter and clothing kept humans from exercising their minds.  All the great accomplishments of humankind have come from having leisure time.

So while $25K could save a child from starving - for a while at least - this is one of those give a fish or teach them to fish lessons - it's not going to do much in the long run, which is the goal.

There have been saints in the past from whatever religion, but I'm not sure their sacrifices - living in the desert and eating locusts and honey or living off the welfare of others like traveling monks/rabbis - actually accomplished very much other than pointing out to people that they could be happy and contented and peaceful still living in abject poverty because what came after whether a reward, resurrection or next incarnation would be better.

Basically telling people to put up with their circumstances. 

Offline Shasta542

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #86 on: December 01, 2007, 02:16:30 pm »
And I'd like to point out that even if you don't have a lot of money to give away -- I don't -- you can still help people by offering them kindness and understanding.  This has a ripple effect and it might end up helping someone who doesn't have the basic necessities.  Like the boy in your story, his concern for an individual starfish might cause the man who questioned the efficacy of saving a few starfish when thousands were likely to die to view things differently.  And he in turn may decide that it's worth at least doing what he can, even if it is a drop in the bucket.  Isn't a full bucket made up of a multitude of drops?  Doesn't someone have to start somewhere?

Be good to yourself.  Give yourself what you need to sustain your life, and be happy.  Then do something for someone else.   :D

Gary

 ;D
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Offline Kelda

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #87 on: December 01, 2007, 02:32:42 pm »
Wow - this took me a long time to read this thread. But to get back on topic.

I am of the Janice mindset. I think it would be hard but if it meant saving others - including children I probably would do it.

In a situation of life and death - instincts take over. Some people would fight for their life with every being of their body - others would just give up.

Obvioulsy i try things first, and I might accidently do it but I reckon I ould fight for my life. I would feel terrible about it and think about it every day of my life but at the same time - a la Private Ryan - I would make every day count.
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #88 on: December 01, 2007, 02:36:05 pm »
Hi Del,

Thanks for this.  This is just what I was trying to get it.  You're not likely to help anyone by treating yourself like trash.

I have read Out of Africa, but I don't recall the quote that you refer to.  Maybe I didn't notice it, or it's slipped my mind, or maybe it's from something else that she wrote.  In any event, it's a great point.

I think Virginia Woolf made a very similar point in A Room Of One's Own.  We don't need anything extragant, but we do need the space and the freedome that comes from some amount of affluence in order to create.  If I recall she was writing specifically about how women need to have some amount of independence from men in order to be themselves.  But the same principal is true for all of us.  If our possition in the world isn't relatively secure then we won't have much time to even think about someone else's needs, much less have the desire to reach out.

Gary

She didn't write it in Out of Africa, it came from one of her letters during that period.  Virginia Woolf really pinned it down and I'm not surprised, they were contemporaries.  Western women were just starting to roll on their emancipation and they understood how being in poverty - poverty of material goods or just spirit - was enslaving.

You're completely right.  This holds true for all.  There is no accomplishment, no charity for anyone when everyone is struggling just to live.

Offline Kelda

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Re: The Morality Quiz
« Reply #89 on: December 01, 2007, 02:38:04 pm »
Oh and to add, although I don't know anyone personally that was involved directly in ther holocaust (My sisters ex grandad in law had his number tattoed on to his arm but I never met him and apprently he never EVER talked about it and she never saw that number) but having visited Auswitch - I had a very VERY strong emotional reaction to it - as most people do. If you have such a strong reactyion to it 60 years later, imagine what you felt to actually be there.
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