Notabelieveroratheologiansplainin’? Dunnow, too many letters…
Yeah, but no way Pete Rose belongs there. No way. And I don’t even watch baseball!!
(Bolding, italics mine)
And don’t forget the Mel Gibson film.
That’s interesting - there’s certainly merit in establishing the facts, but I would say the really valuable debates are the ones where we don’t have a citeable authority to refer to, and we have to come to decisions ourselves. In these cases, it’s really helpful to get differing viewpoints as a way of getting new insight on the problem. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken”, after all. Granted, some degree of common terminology is useful and I agree that “vile” is a rather fuzzy concept.
I would agree with that for small harms. (I may, from time to time, have made mistakes myself, after all.) My instinct is that there’s a point where the scale of harm caused by incompetence is so great that incompetence ceases to be a mitigating factor and becomes an aggravating one. Particularly if the harm happens over a long period of time, as is alleged here. The more opportunities to recognise and correct incompetence, the less of an excuse it is. I also feel that if someone seeks out a position where there competence or incompetence will have potentially serious effects then they have a duty not just to believe that they are competent but to know they are. To believe in your untested competence to care for the sick just because you really want to is pure vanity.
However, if I’m following your conversation with Grumman correctly, you’re arguing that there may be other reasons than managerial incompetence behind the failure of the hospice. Are you saying that Mother Teresa’s religiously inspired view of suffering could have played a role in her decisions on the level and quality of medical/palliative care her institution should provide?
The other thing to keep in mind is that, from a Catholic’s perspective, it’s really not all that hard to get into heaven. I suspect that if we play by their rules, the vast majority of Catholics end up there. So the “hall of fame” analogy isn’t a good one in the sense that the souls in heaven aren’t hardly some rarified elite. A saint is just someone in heaven. And most of the folks in that religion end up there. It may seem like a big deal when someone is canonized like this, but it’s not, really, from a statical standpoint.
Sure there are lots of people in Heaven going by Catholic teaching. People who are canonized are a Hall of Fame, though, because it is rare that we are given to know in this world the status of those in the next. Yes, your grandmother was a lovely, good-hearted lady, but how many documented post mortem miracles are attributed to her? Mother Teresa has at least one, apparently.
Atheists are the top most Authoritah on all things religious.
Hall of fame has too much of a connotation that they were chosen by us. They weren’t.
But if you really want to call them that, go ahead. You have my blessing. 
Thank you for the blessing. The Hall of fame thing was just an analogy, anyway.
In other words, you’re just trolling. Nice.
Let me guess, you’re a criminal defense attorney?..
[QUOTE=Bricker]
When you discuss an odious sin like child rape, naturally it raises strong emotions.
But forget Catholic-specific doctrine for a moment.
In your understanding of general Christian belief, is it fairer to say:
(A) no matter how contrite and seeking forgiveness he might be, a person who has raped children can never be forgiven by God, and is automatically consigned to Hell,
-or-
(B) even such a horrible sinner as that can be forgiven by God
[/quote]
Asked and answered, counselor. No more questions.
I was a Catholic, and I am pretty much in agreement with the OP. But I don’t think I had much faith past the second or third grade. My friends and I used to say if you want to make your kid an ex-Catholic send them to Catholic school.
So we can add a lack of any understanding of what the word ‘trolling,’ means to the list of concepts that participants here are still willing to confidently assess despite that lack.
Has been asked, has not been answered. Did the University of Ally McBeal not cover that concept?
I don’t see that at all. I think it’s clear from our discussion that Bricker has sincere reasons for wanting to know more about Mother Teresa’s role and the circumstances behind the alleged mistreatment of patients before he’ll come to a judgement. Nothing about our discussion makes me think he’s trolling.
So first, what’s wrong with criminal defense attorneys? The concept of vigorously testing the other side of a debate shouldn’t be one that people find alarming or somehow contemptible. Secondly, I don’t see much wrong with Bricker’s answer. Redemption and forgiveness are central to Christianity and pose much, much harder problems than they might seem to at first.
This, only pretend like I wrote it.
Mother Theresa bet on games?
Regards,
Shodan
You’ve made it abundantly clear that your raison d’etre is to enlighten us about the importance of the letter of the law, to a fault, regardless of the moral standing of said authority.
And while I often appreciate your insight… hell, every now and then find myself agreeing with your argument… I almost always feel like I need a shower afterwards.
It’s just that I don’t care, you see.
As a general aspirational principle, I agree with the foregoing…but I think the general case breaks down when the differing viewpoints arise from fundamentally differing postulates.
Someone might claim, for example, that Mother Teresa’s insistence on teaching the sinfulness of contraception was vile, given the rampant overpopulation, poverty, and hunger problems in her part of the world. A debate can ensue on just how much overpopulation exists, or whether hunger is the result of too many mouths or poor resource management.
But when one side of the debate declares that the use of contraception imperils one’s soul, and the other side declares equally firmly that a soul is a figment of the imagination, this is where I would suggest your collegial model breaks down.
It’s possible. I have no idea what the facts actually are – the reports alleging poor medical care seem to consistently arise from sources that had a general animus towards religious care. In particular, these appear to be many of the same sources that express indignation that Mother Teresa sought not merely to care for the bodies, but to convert her patients to Christianity.
So there remain too many variables in play: the unambiguous facts are not established, and if they were, there would likely remain differing interpretations of her actions, some more damning than others.
Not exactly. I am simply in the position of not sharing an identical set of moral precepts with you.
Is it immoral to withhold, or even criminalize, medical care?
Yes!
Unless by “medical care,” you mean abortion. Then, no.
Is it immoral to refuse to distribute condoms? No! Or, yes. Depending on whether you attach any moral significance to stopping the transmission of new life during the marital sex act.
See the problem?
You read my unwillingness to be moved into a moral discussion as a lack of concern about the moral underpinnings of an issue. But that’s not it. It’s a lack of common moral ground to analyze the issue.
I think it would be more accurate to say the last part should be “let me explain to you why I say Mother Theresa should not be venerated.”
But we don’t have to look very hard for examples of religious care that affords patients the kinds of medical attention (like pain killers and clean needles, for example) that improves their quality of life and does not jeopardize their salvation.
Now, one could argue that the kind of care available in first world countries is not realistically achievable in a third world country. But is it really the case that there are too many variables at play to establish unambiguously that MT hospices could have done far more than they did but failed to do so due to reasons other than lack of funds.