Tag Archives: Selfishness

Commentary

David Warren on western civilization and the place of pleasure

7 Comments

ECM and I have a disagreement about David Warren. I don’t think he’s analytical and evidential enough, and ECM thinks that he’s an excellent writer of essays. Please read this short essay on the proper role of pleasure, and then leave a comment explaining which of us you agree with.

Excerpt:

The building and rebuilding forces of our society — essentially church and family — are by now almost everywhere under organized legal, legislative, and propaganda assault from the sterile vanguard of the atheist Left. The poison mist of “political correctness” swirls over our psychic landscape, and the great joyous and unifying truths which animated Western Christendom continue to be supplanted, both practically and symbolically, by the envious Big Lies of the political “activists.”

(Hope that didn’t sound too wishy-washy.)

It’s very wishy-washy – filled with mystical language and untestable assertions! How am I supposed to use all this flippant flowery flibbertigibbet to bash my atheist enemies into goo, and then steal their gold? It’s no use at all!

Anyway, Warren diagnoses the problem as being a lack of moral and spiritual education, which has been replaced by hedonism, and he illustrates his point using the example of gluttony.

But nature, in herself, cannot save us. We are not mere animals needing only nature’s call. That part of our nature which rises to the fully human requires some degree of emotional, moral, intellectual, and yes, spiritual education — which begins at home, with a mom and dad.

Let us consider this morning the perfect example for après-Christmas: “gluttony.”

I suspect you will all agree with me that David Warren’s head is filled with metaphors and feathers. So, take a look at the essay yourself and tell me what you think.

Commentary

NYT writer worried that vegetables – not unborn children – feel pain

4 Comments

Story here in the New York Times. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze. It’s time for a green revolution, a reseeding of our stubborn animal minds.

Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl… It’s a small daily tragedy that we animals must kill to stay alive. Plants are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the sun. Don’t expect them to boast: they’re too busy fighting to survive.

So, plants are people, too, and we shouldn’t do violence to them by eating them. Interesting… But you know who doesn’t deserve protection from violence, according to the secular left? Unborn children, that’s who. I don’t see them mentioned in this NYT article.

In fact, the left wants to use government power to stop conscience rights for pro-life doctors, and even the public expression of pro-life convictions. (H/T Lex Communis)

Don’t forget all the pro-life clubs that are banned across Canada. But maybe plants have a right to life, because maybe they feel pain.

People on the secular left like recreational sex, but they don’t like having unexpected mouths to feed. They want the pleasure of sex, but not the work of taking care of innocent little babies. To feel less guilty about killing babies, they have to invent a new morality that blesses something else they want to do as morally good, like recycling, animal rights activism or vegetarianism. It’s idolatry – inventing a god of your own that you can appease just by doing anything you want.

News

Catholic church will stop all charity work if same-sex marriage passes in DC

5 Comments

From the Washington Post. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”

This happens all the time with other charities like Catholic adoption agencies and hospitals. The left wants to force the people who actually do good to change their worldview to atheism. But self-sacrificial acts of charity are not rationally grounded by the atheist worldview. Atheists are NOT just like religious people when it comes to morality. The only standards of morality that are grounded by atheism are personal preferences and cultural fashions. Morality isn’t real, on their view. There is no objective ground for moral values and duties.

The problem with the atheistic worldview is that their purpose in life is hedonism. And there is no reason for them to care about the consequences of their actions on other people’s rights since rights are illusory on atheism. They want to pursue happiness, avoid moral obligations, and have others pay for the social consequences of their actions. They don’t care about how their selfishness hurts vulnerable children, born and unborn. And they are willing to use government to force religious people to subsidize and celebrate their selfish immorality.

The great moral accomplishment of atheists in the last 100 years has been to murder 100 million people. And this is not counting the millions of deaths caused by abortion, and environmentalist bans on DDT. It also doesn’t count the millions of broken homes caused by the sexual revolution, or the social costs of raising children without fathers who go on to commit crimes. Perhaps they should just mind their own business instead of interfering with the charity done by those whose worldview actually grounds morality rationally.