**Blog title was changed, based on some emails**
According to an Aristotelico-Thomist format, the 'good' is designated as 'that which is in accord with the nature of the thing.' We use words, phrases and expressions on a daily basis, but at times we forget essentially what they mean. Vocabulary in the west has been hijacked and thus we are left with using words all the while not really knowing what they truly mean. Our current crisis, is one of intelligence, not properly knowing how to think. Our experience and emotions become the navigational tool instead of right reason and judgement.
Our current climate is seeing a clash of civilizations, to paraphrase Samuel Huntington. It seems ideological standard bearers on either the so-called right or so-called left have hijacked the political and religious landscape essentially leaving no room for common sense. The religious right, backed by fierce evangelical Christians particularly in the United States adhere to a fideistic, fundamentalist notion of what they understand as their Faith. (Ie, Homosexual marriage is wrong because the Bible tells me so, and refuse any serious discussion as to the 'whys' of the Biblical commandment.) Those on the left, adhere to a false social justice, and claim a subjectivist man-centered equality in marriage. (Ie Homosexual marriage is my right, because we are all equal. They refuse any discussion of either authentic metaphysics or anthropology.) The solution is the why's of certain proposals which never seem to make it to light.
The crisis if one of anthropology. What is a human being? According to the Aristotelico-Thomist model which built Europe, we are a body/soul composite. There are certain faculties proper to the soul and are immaterial. Intelligence, and will for example. Now, we don't need the Bible or Catechism to show us that there is an inherent gap between the two. My intelligence freely knows that 'broccoli' is 'good' for me, but my will is predisposed toward donuts. For a human being to make a free decision, he must adhere to his intelligence, training his willpower to follow it, and thus create a habitus. (habit.) On the other hand, when he adheres exclusively to his emotive and experiential side, negating the knowledge he may possess because he deems it to hard, he will create an addiction or a vice. To adhere to the higher faculties of intellect and reason over sense and emotion is indeed the complex situation that we find ourselves in. Still it remains the path to true freedom, or doing what you ought. (As distinct from 'license,' doing what you want.)
Today's relativism will soon give way to an individual choosing to put orange juice in their car because it is cheaper than gas, thereby becoming a pedestrian. An individual getting hurt, because he jumped out a ten story window claiming it was his right to 'fly.' A quadriplegic will be suing the Olympic commitee for discrimination because he cannot compete in a downhill slolem. Finally people attempting to marry their 'pets' as they are the only ones they 'feel' truly 'loving them' and it will be their 'right' to do so.
Into this vaccuum of false anthropology, comes ideology whereby the 'good' is ultimately what the deity decides in their particular holy book. There is no room for questioning, or intellectual discourse, only blind obedience. As thinking people, we need to stop labeling, and separate the person from the ideology. A member of Isis has intelligence and can love, while radical islam cannot. There is no such thing as an 'alcoholic,' instead there is a person who is suffering an addiction to alcohol. We are men and women, equal but different. We can be 'conditioned' but retain an actual capacity to discover Truth.
In closing, our current crisis is one of intelligence. I pray that I don't come off as a right-wing nutjob(some of you accuse me of being) or a bleeding heart liberal. (Others accuse me of being.) All I am asking for is an authentic search for what the Truth is in all the bio-ethical, moral, civil, and social issues affecting us today. Millions of lives lost through abortion, yet we will willingly dive in front of a bulldozer to save a tree. We are in the middle of bathroom issues with regards to so-called transgendered. We blame pitbulls and guns, but what about trucks? (That last attack was with a truck.) We need to reclaim responsibility for ourselves and stop passing the buck. I don't blame the dogs, instead I question the intellectual and moral acumen of a person with a young family buying such a dog.
Until we rediscover authentic anthropology, true metaphysics, and seek the proper 'good?' We will remain at the mercy of Isis, and the new 'evangelization' will remain futile.
My ADD came out full force on this one.
Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis!
According to an Aristotelico-Thomist format, the 'good' is designated as 'that which is in accord with the nature of the thing.' We use words, phrases and expressions on a daily basis, but at times we forget essentially what they mean. Vocabulary in the west has been hijacked and thus we are left with using words all the while not really knowing what they truly mean. Our current crisis, is one of intelligence, not properly knowing how to think. Our experience and emotions become the navigational tool instead of right reason and judgement.
Our current climate is seeing a clash of civilizations, to paraphrase Samuel Huntington. It seems ideological standard bearers on either the so-called right or so-called left have hijacked the political and religious landscape essentially leaving no room for common sense. The religious right, backed by fierce evangelical Christians particularly in the United States adhere to a fideistic, fundamentalist notion of what they understand as their Faith. (Ie, Homosexual marriage is wrong because the Bible tells me so, and refuse any serious discussion as to the 'whys' of the Biblical commandment.) Those on the left, adhere to a false social justice, and claim a subjectivist man-centered equality in marriage. (Ie Homosexual marriage is my right, because we are all equal. They refuse any discussion of either authentic metaphysics or anthropology.) The solution is the why's of certain proposals which never seem to make it to light.
The crisis if one of anthropology. What is a human being? According to the Aristotelico-Thomist model which built Europe, we are a body/soul composite. There are certain faculties proper to the soul and are immaterial. Intelligence, and will for example. Now, we don't need the Bible or Catechism to show us that there is an inherent gap between the two. My intelligence freely knows that 'broccoli' is 'good' for me, but my will is predisposed toward donuts. For a human being to make a free decision, he must adhere to his intelligence, training his willpower to follow it, and thus create a habitus. (habit.) On the other hand, when he adheres exclusively to his emotive and experiential side, negating the knowledge he may possess because he deems it to hard, he will create an addiction or a vice. To adhere to the higher faculties of intellect and reason over sense and emotion is indeed the complex situation that we find ourselves in. Still it remains the path to true freedom, or doing what you ought. (As distinct from 'license,' doing what you want.)
Today's relativism will soon give way to an individual choosing to put orange juice in their car because it is cheaper than gas, thereby becoming a pedestrian. An individual getting hurt, because he jumped out a ten story window claiming it was his right to 'fly.' A quadriplegic will be suing the Olympic commitee for discrimination because he cannot compete in a downhill slolem. Finally people attempting to marry their 'pets' as they are the only ones they 'feel' truly 'loving them' and it will be their 'right' to do so.
Into this vaccuum of false anthropology, comes ideology whereby the 'good' is ultimately what the deity decides in their particular holy book. There is no room for questioning, or intellectual discourse, only blind obedience. As thinking people, we need to stop labeling, and separate the person from the ideology. A member of Isis has intelligence and can love, while radical islam cannot. There is no such thing as an 'alcoholic,' instead there is a person who is suffering an addiction to alcohol. We are men and women, equal but different. We can be 'conditioned' but retain an actual capacity to discover Truth.
In closing, our current crisis is one of intelligence. I pray that I don't come off as a right-wing nutjob(some of you accuse me of being) or a bleeding heart liberal. (Others accuse me of being.) All I am asking for is an authentic search for what the Truth is in all the bio-ethical, moral, civil, and social issues affecting us today. Millions of lives lost through abortion, yet we will willingly dive in front of a bulldozer to save a tree. We are in the middle of bathroom issues with regards to so-called transgendered. We blame pitbulls and guns, but what about trucks? (That last attack was with a truck.) We need to reclaim responsibility for ourselves and stop passing the buck. I don't blame the dogs, instead I question the intellectual and moral acumen of a person with a young family buying such a dog.
Until we rediscover authentic anthropology, true metaphysics, and seek the proper 'good?' We will remain at the mercy of Isis, and the new 'evangelization' will remain futile.
My ADD came out full force on this one.
Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis!
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