How many times has Bart Stupak voted for criminal statutes that include the death penalty? Last time I checked, the Catholic Church wasn’t really into that, either.
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How many times has Bart Stupak voted for criminal statutes that include the death penalty? Last time I checked, the Catholic Church wasn’t really into that, either.
This sort of Catholicism is less like a cafeteria than like a restaurant in which you can choose from a numbered list of combinations — the one with the capital punishment but without abortion is especially popular.
Would you be more impressed if his views fell in complete compliance with Rome? Or would that agitate you further?
I did find this brief on his views dealing with crime.
Bart Stupak On Cime
Now, I don’t support the death penalty, so Bart and I are a bit at odds there and a few other places (all crime to me is hateful, for example). However, I think he’s giving his principles a good shake test. It looks as if he wants reasonable assurance that an execution is not done lightly. Increased police presence, prison diversion programs for non-violents offenders, rehanbilitation, etc. I may not agree with all that he supports, but he’s got a respectable platform and history on the issue.
Jonathan, you have to understand that there’s sin and then there’s SIN. Molesting children - minor sin. Covering up for it - petty sin. Revealing those crimes - excommunication. Torture - sin, but not one which will block one from receiving communion. Handing out condoms - very bad, and one which can block one from receiving communion.
Barry,
Molestation remains a mortal sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church. If unforgiven and unabsolved, Catholics believe it will condemn a person to Hell immediately upon death. It is a grave sin, as is bearing false witness (covering up such an act with deception). Thus, covering it up would also be a mortal sin.
I think you may benefit from expanding your view of what others believe by understanding their faith more. I’m no a Catholic, of course. I do know a good deal about their faith, though.
Maybe you’d like to revisit your comments after reviewing their doctrine.
“I’m no a Catholic, of course.”
Yikes, no edit function.
“I’m not a Catholic, of course.”
Stupak voted for the AEDPA (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:HR00729:@@@S) and against substituting life imprisonment for the federal death penalty (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d103:5:./temp/~bdYXvk::).
Behavior speaks a lot louder than doctrine, Mr. Peasant. Barry’s pretty close on characterizing the behavioral values of the Catholic hierarchy. If Matthew 7:20 is correct, somebody’s got some serious ’splainin’ to do, Lucy. On the other hand, maybe God is like the United States Supreme Court and doesn’t buy into the whole idea of corporate responsibility.
Rock Throwing Peasant says:
“Barry,
Molestation remains a mortal sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church. If unforgiven and unabsolved, Catholics believe it will condemn a person to Hell immediately upon death. It is a grave sin, as is bearing false witness (covering up such an act with deception). Thus, covering it up would also be a mortal sin.”
Explain it to Benedict, the cardinals and the bishops, ’cause they don’t seem to have heard it.
Also, you really didn’t understand the tone of my post - it’s called ’sarcasm’.
Ah. Ok.
I guess I’ll check back later and see if anyone is going to post something meant to stimulate good conversation.
Catholic bashing? Meh.
Sadly, the “life begins at conception and ends at birth” view is not only very common and quite blinkered - it’s actually rather consistent with a theology of original sin and salvation in the Church.
Rock Throwing Peasant mutters: “Would you be more impressed if his views fell in complete compliance with Rome?”
Well, yes, I would be more impressed if he didn’t use his faith only when convenient to his politics. “Mr. Stupak says his stand [i.e. on abortion] is a straightforward matter of Roman Catholic faith” http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/s/bart_stupak/index.html
But since *you* apparently approve of his stance on the death penalty, that’s just as good as him not being a hypocrite, I guess.
Self-serving bullshit? Meh.
“Maybe you’d like to revisit your comments after reviewing their doctrine.”
There is doctrine and then there is practice.
And it is not Catholic bashing to point out that the actual practices of the Catholic leadership, including the pope, depart substantially from stated doctrine, that the departure is knowing and deliberate, and that the church’s doctrinal statements are an intentional deception designed to mask corruption at the very heart of the church.
As for Stupak, why doesn’t someone propose an amendment prohibiting the spending of federal tax dollars on executions, either at the state or federal level, to exclude any federal funding of any law enforcement or prosecutorial system that is involved in any manner in effectuating executions, since many taxpayers feel that executions are immoral.
You don’t want your tax dollars spent on abortion even tangentially? Well, I don’t want my tax dollars spent, even tangentially, on executions.
Similarly, we can have an amendment prohibiting the spending of tax dollars on war efforts in Iraq, on torture or for any agency involved in torture, no matter how tangentially and as the tax payer defines torture, not the government.
In fact, we could probably come up with a whole list of government expenditures, tangential or direct, that a large group of tax payers find morally objectionable.
Just don’t try to restrict it to only that government spending that conservatives find morally objectionable, which seems to be the pattern we see.
Rock Throwing Peasant says:
“Ah. Ok.
I guess I’ll check back later and see if anyone is going to post something meant to stimulate good conversation.
Catholic bashing? Meh.”
‘Bashing’? Pointing out what an organization has done, to the highest levels of ‘management’, for decades, is bashing?
OTOH, I’ll just accept your confession - for when truth is ‘bashing’, one must be guilty.
But since *you* apparently approve of his stance on the death penalty, that’s just as good as him not being a hypocrite, I guess.
I don’t approve of it, at all. Read a little closer and shelve the snark. I said he has respectable positions (as opposed to outrageous ones). I’ve said that I don’t support capital punishment.
You’re upset because a Catholic isn’t a robot. It would be helpful to you to dehumanize him. However, he shows that he can embrace some parts of doctrine and cannot reconcile other parts with his role as an official.
Something tells me that if he also said capital punishment is forbidden by doctrine, therefore he is against it, you would be equally up in arms about his vote belonging to the Vatican and not to his constituents (or himself).
So, how about a little intellectual honesty and courtesy? He has made his positions clear. They have long standing cultural and religious roots. I may disagree with them, but I can respect his opinion on the matter.
And folks here are engaged in bashing, as the above situation illustrates. No scenario would please people, like calling all toasters, unless he renounces his faith entirely. You’ve put him in a “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t position” and proceed to air irrelevent accusations (as they pertain to Stupak) in order to get Barry and others into a frenzy about those damned Catholics.
So, associate with Catholicism and we will whip you at the post with all sorts of nonsense in order to degrade the perception of you and your faith. The only hope you have is to never whisper that you are Catholic or express your beliefs in public.
Nah, that’s not bashing.
C’mon, Reality Based Community, face some reality here.
DavidTX, I’ll respond your post individually later. I appreciate your comments and look forward to hearing more.
And it is not Catholic bashing to point out that the actual practices of the Catholic leadership, including the pope, depart substantially from stated doctrine, that the departure is knowing and deliberate, and that the church’s doctrinal statements are an intentional deception designed to mask corruption at the very heart of the church.
As I’ve said, the bashing is painting someone into a corner, flailing their character via guilt by association, and leaving only one course of action: complete silence or disassociation with Catholicism. Substitute Catholicism for a race, gender, or sexual proclivity.
As for Stupak, why doesn’t someone propose an amendment prohibiting the spending of federal tax dollars on executions, either at the state or federal level, to exclude any federal funding of any law enforcement or prosecutorial system that is involved in any manner in effectuating executions, since many taxpayers feel that executions are immoral.
I’m okay with it. I haven’t supported the death penalty for years.
Similarly, we can have an amendment prohibiting the spending of tax dollars on war efforts in Iraq, on torture or for any agency involved in torture, no matter how tangentially and as the tax payer defines torture, not the government.
Those spending bills are, in fact, debated and passed (or not passed).
In fact, we could probably come up with a whole list of government expenditures, tangential or direct, that a large group of tax payers find morally objectionable.
Certainly. It’s a matter of addressing the concerns of constituents. Representatives do just as you are suggesting every year, don’t they? In order to pass, though, they must build a consensus. Some issues have broader appeal than others.
Just don’t try to restrict it to only that government spending that conservatives find morally objectionable, which seems to be the pattern we see.
I think you’d find that a liberal/progressive representative/Congress does limit funding for behavior they find morally objectionable. It’s the legislative process.
I may not always agree with the decisions reached on Capitol Hill. I may find certain spending (heck, most spending) to be objectionable. However, I can vote and I can advocate. I can try to get certain bills passed and try to stop other bills.
I’m not sure why this situation is so different. Liberals in Congress want certain spending and do not want spending on other things, based on principles/morals. Conservatives do, as well. Those in between are also in the mix. We’re watching the sausage that is legislation in a representative form of government.
It seems to me that I was raised to believe that a Catholic had a moral duty to follow his or her individual conscience, which was to be informed or influenced but not dictated by the Church. (It’s been years since catechism though.) So in my book, Stupak is fine as long as he explains his thinking, assuming it has some coherence to it.
I don’t think you could find any house of worship in which all the people in it agreed on every last thing. Wouldn’t that be a cult, if you did find one? People shouldn’t go around saying, “I believe such-and-such because I’m a ________ .” That should be a nonsensical statement. Besides, I really don’t give a hooey what religion someone is. That tells me nothing about them.
Now the sad part is going to come if someone points out to me that this individual conscience business is not actually doctrine, at which point I will be up a creek. But one good thing about being Catholic is once you’re in, hardly anyone gets kicked out.
And there’s a giant difference between the hierarchy of the Church and its evolving essential nature as a faith. I think a lot of the trouble is left over from the Cold War, unfortunately. That’s when the priesthood became so rabidly right-wing, which I think is probably why they are so afraid of scrutiny on abuse cases. They probably see the scandal as an attack on the religion itself, as amazing as that seems to the rest of us. You know, Marxists behind every shrub. What the Church needs is a rigorous housecleaning, on every continent. It just doesn’t look good to express remorse on the one hand, and then fight every subpoena with the other. And after a long legal battle, they lose anyway, unless the system is rigged.
The questions we should be asking are about those countries where there is no free press or independent judiciary. What is happening in those places, and who is going to stop it?
Rock Throwing Peasant-
Thanks for the kind instructions on what I would say were the circumstances different, on my religious prejudices, and on my emotional processes. I can only imagine how persuasive these would be had you any respect for facts in evidence.
Unless a priest sodomizes a young boy to death.
“If there is no god all things are permissible, as law becomes reduced to preferences and there is no such thing as what ought to be done but only what is done.” - Dostoevsky
I always find it interesting and amusing when those who believe there is no god want to live on borrowed capital and talk in terms of moral evils, as if there is any objective standard for determining what is good and bad in any moral sense outside of god. On what basis is (or is not) capital punishment objectively morally equivalent to abortion? I get tired of hearing nothing more than debates over people’s opinions; I thought we were aiming to deal with facts on this site?
Bux, you’ve previously expressed your opinion that Atheists are by definition amoral monsters with no conception of right and wrong. It’d be funny that people actually think such things of their fellow humans, if it weren’t so depressing. Quoting Dostoevsky doesn’t make it any more correct. The notion of it may amuse you, but I assure you that there are plenty of atheists who are good people, and there’s no reason an atheist can’t have thoughts about morality - no “borrowed capital” required. It’s an interesting question whether most organized religions, and especially today’s scandal-plagued Catholic Church, would have a positive balance at your metaphorical bank of moral capital from which to make such a loan in any case.
It is obviously possible to create a moral code that bans abortion but celebrates capital punishment, or to create all sorts of moral codes that assign various relative and absolute levels of approval or approbation to capital punishment and to abortion (though if you’re going to define a zygote as a human, or especially if as the Catholics do you’re going to define gametes as having special rights, you’ll really have to rely on theology and scripture to justify that part of your argument).
The point is that Stupak doesn’t assert that he follows some such idiosyncratic moral code concocted to fit his policy positions; instead, he asserts that he’s voting his conscience as informed by his Catholic faith. Only problem is, he clearly isn’t: he chooses to be informed by his faith on issues pertaining to abortion, but not on other issues. This makes him either a hypocrite or a liar when he claims he’s just being a good Catholic. And that judgement is, I believe, sufficiently accurate to be one of those facts you wish this site would deal with.
Shorter Bux: y’all need to add some objective facts to the discussion, like the words of God.
Pay attention Warren. I never said atheists have “no conception of right and wrong” (nor did I refer to them as “amoral monsters”). I simply made the point that, without reference to a divine mandate of moral absolutes, all humans (including atheists) have no objective basis for claiming that something is right or wrong. Atheists have a conception of right and wrong just like everyone else; we call that an opinion. The question is on what objective basis is their standard of right and wrong determined. You say the death penalty is wrong and bad (I assume) and I say the death penalty is right and good. On what basis is your conception of “right” better than mine?
Bux,
1)I ventured no opinion on the death penalty (I’ve no moral objection in principle, but lots of problems with the process).
2)Your faith provides no objective imprimatur to your idea of morality.
“What? Huh? Oh come on! That is so unbelievably…” I then realize the comment is from Bux.
It is however an incredibly widely held belief among “fundamentalists”. Yet most of them could hardly be considered fundamentalists considering how few actually follow the literal word of the bible. And so their argument becomes an appeal to fundamentalism, yet they are not themselves fundamentalist. In other words they are the embodiment of the very moral relativism they love to hate.
Sort of a NIMBY morality.
Bux, if there’s no objective basis for an atheist, such as myself, to claim something is right or wrong, then there’s no objective basis for a theist, such as yourself, to claim that God’s decisions on that subject are objectively right or wrong. Maybe this god you’re following uncritically is wrong? How are you going to establish otherwise, without that missing objective basis? You can’t.
So don’t kid yourself that you’re on firmer ground than me.
I can only imagine how persuasive these would be had you any respect for facts in evidence.
Such as claiming that I support his position on capital punishment when there are clear statements to the contrary?
You’ve called him a hypocrite, the most overused and misunderstood word when politics and religion meet (as in this case).
Do you laud legislators who seek to make legislation in accord with their religious beliefs? Why or why not? Could you provide an example of a legislator that you admire for their religious and legislative consistancy?
Eli, if something is objectively right or wrong then it doesn’t matter whether I believe it is right or wrong or whether I actually act upon what is right. It just is because it is. So your comment that fundamentalist Christians don’t follow the bible has no logical place in a discussion on whether morals are objectively right or wrong. It doesn’t matter what I (and my fellow Christians) do or do not do. Call us hypocrites but hypocrisy doesn’t nullify objective reality.
Brett, since you are asking for the objective evidence that God’s decisions on the subject are objectively right or wrong (I’m not even quite sure I understand what you’re asking though), you are then confessing that there is a god. I thought you were an atheist? Why do you want objective evidence of the “goodness” of God’s decisions if you don’t even believe god exists? And I absolutely am on firmer ground than you if you are truly an atheist. I ask you one simple question, on what objective basis do you appeal to for determining if something is right or wrong? And I know you’re going to follow with more of the same and turn around and ask me for evidence of the existence and reliability of my god instead of answering this question. I can provide the evidence, but first give me an answer to my question, which is really just a re-wording of the question I’ve been asking all along.
I assume Anonymous at 9:20 am is Bux?
“I think you’d find that a liberal/progressive representative/Congress does limit funding for behavior they find morally objectionable. It’s the legislative process.”
There is a difference between supporting or opposing legislation that spends money for this or that and inserting special language prohibiting the spending of federal dollars in any fashion that could be viewed as supporting a particular activity.
I am unaware of any effort by any liberal at any time, at least in the last 20-30 years, to insert a clause in a bill that remotely resembles the Hyde Amendment, a prohibition on use of federal funds in connection with a specific private choice. I am, of course, not omniscient when it comes to federal legislation, so I am prepared to consider any example you might offer, but the Hyde Amendment (and the language sought by Stupak) appears to me to go well beyond the usual legislative process.
Rock Throwing Peasant: ‘approve of’ does not mean the same as ‘agree with.’ I often approve of students’ papers that I do not agree with.
“I think he’s giving his principles a good shake test. It looks as if he wants reasonable assurance that an execution is not done lightly. Increased police presence, prison diversion programs for non-violents offenders, rehanbilitation, etc. I may not agree with all that he supports, but he’s got a respectable platform and history on the issue.”
Sounds like you approve of it, but it you would prefer ‘admire’ or ‘respect,’ OK by me.
“Do you laud legislators who seek to make legislation in accord with their religious beliefs?” No, not that I can recall. But I certainly have more respect for those figures who are consistent than not. Stupak and The Family (and the Conference of Bishops) are very good at employing doctrine as a justification for doing things that they already want to do, and when doctrine opposes it, well they have another reason. I didn’t support the Vietnam War, either, but I had a lot more respect for draft resisters who either went to jail or Canada, rather than falsely (certainly true in some cases) claiming they were conscientious objectors. To put it another way: I have a lot more trust in religious ‘robots’ than in these Tartuffes.
As I’ve said, the bashing is painting someone into a corner, flailing their character via guilt by association, and leaving only one course of action: complete silence or disassociation with Catholicism. Substitute Catholicism for a race, gender, or sexual proclivity.
So, in your world, what can be legitimately said about someone who appears to “vote thier concience” only when it is convenient for them?
Additionally, in your world, what can legitimately be said about an organization that repeatedly covers up for child molesters, in multiple countries, over decades, and indeed is led by someone who covered for them? If this were any other organization, there would be a global witch hunt. Because it is the Catholic church, we’re supposed to defer to its public statements and not its actions?
(Whoops, it appears this site strips HTML. That first paragraph is a quote from Rock Throwing Peasant.)
I ask you one simple question, on what objective basis do you appeal to for determining if something is right or wrong?
I’m also an atheist, and I wonder if you could answer my simple question before I answer yours: what do you mean by “objective basis”? If the atheist says “I believe cruelty is wrong,” and the theist says “I believe cruelty is forbidden by God, and I believe God knows infallibly what is right and wrong,” how is the theist being more “objective” than the atheist?