From: 160955r@garnet.berkeley.edu ()
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Cath. Christianity 101 - Gaudium et spes 3 - "Community of Man"
Date: 11 Apr 1992 07:12:48 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

In article <ku7leuINNf1i@skat.usc.edu> kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ) writes:
>
>posted to talk.religion.misc
>
>----------------------------------
>
>Christian revelation contributes greatly to the promotion of
>this communion between persons, and at the same time leads us to a
>deeper understanding of the laws of social life which the Creator has
>written into man's moral and spiritual nature.


The essence of the "revelation": this book I read and partly understood
tells me that if you do not join me in my belief that the Universe was
in fact manufactured by an old White male with long beard you will go, 
after your death, to  a place where a crossbred of black goats and hu-
mans will eternally subject you to physicak pain. Also, Karol Wojtyla
of Warszaw, Poland, speaks the absolute truth whenever he"officiates
the mess". 
I wonder what the "revelation" of Giordano Bruno's tortioners was. Or,
Ignacio de Loyola; quite a number of interesting revelations he had 
about how to rapidly convince Jews and Muslims to abjur; most exquisite
torture utensils date from that period.

>  For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatset
>commandment.  Sacred Scripture, however, teaches us that the love of
>God cannot be separated from love of neighbor:

Wait a minute, I smell ellitism here! If I am not a "man of God" I can
not love my neighbor? Since when is affection an exclusive trait of
Christians? How about Muslims? Are they capable of loving their neighbors?
Or their pets? So, after George Bush declared in 1988 that "atheists are
nor patriots since we are one nation under God", now we have a bunch of
old men in Rome monopolize love for the use of those who believe Jesus
ressurected Lazarus...

>  25. Man's social nature makes it evident that the progress of the
>human person and the advance of society itself hinge on one another.

Very deep! Would earn a C+ in Anthro I.

>  Among those social ties which man needs for his development some,
>like the family and political community, relate with greater immediacy
>to his innermost nature: others originate rather from his free
>decision.  In our era, for various reasons, reciprocal ties and mutual
>dependencies increase day by day and give rise to a variety of
>associations and organizations, both public and private.  This
>development, which is called socialization, while certainly not
>without its dangers, brings with it many advantages with respect to
>consolidating and creasing the qualities of the human person, and
>safeguarding his rights [4].

Aha! The dangers of excessive socialization! People get to talk 
and share with each other their problems and anxieties; they may,
God forbid, start learning things; and, before you know, they stop
coming to church, which will of course, make us look like a bunch
of fools...
An educated guess: a few paragraphs from here we will start hearing
things like: "You can find the truth only in God" and "you are
a sinner in need of forgiveness", etc.etc.
>
> .....it cannot
>be denied that men are often diverted from doing good and spurred
>toward evil by the social circumstances in which they live and are
>immersed from their birth. 

Technically, there is no "good" and "evil" without socialization, the
absence of which negates the need for a set of moral norms...
>
>............ involves rights and duties with respect to the whole
>human race.  Every social group must take account of the needs and
>legitimate aspirations of other groups, and even of the general
>welfare of the entire human family [5].

This is a relatively recent revelation. The dominant revelation until
maybe 150 years ago, was: get in there and spread the Word at every
cost, even if that entails that 80% of them die. Also, teach them 
some work ethic and make them build churches. Yeah, you can chain them.
After all it is not even sure they are humans...
>
>......... the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a
>family, the right to education, to employment, to a good reputation,
>to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the
>upright norm of one's own conscience, to protection of privacy and to
>rightful freedom, even in matters religious.

Of course, we can "excomunicate" left and right if deemed necessary.
Also, if their own conscience tells tham abortions are OK then they
are free to go to hell. Women can not be free to be ordained. People
who have orgasms due to intimacy with other people of  same sex
are also free to go to hell. However, people who do not have orgasns
at all, not even for reproduction, will get prime real estate in Heaven.
The article goes on and on, indicating the modern concern of the Catholic
Church with the brotherhood of all men (the status of women is unclear)
the primacy of the individual soul over  societal norms, etc. etc.
Really captivating how the Catholic Church changes its  focus as a func-
tion of where the dough is. For a while, the profit maximizing beha-
vior was maximizing the number of churches  and parishioners. There
was relatively little competition, and all these new lands were so rich!
Alas, our planet, although not flat is still finite! Other sellers of
posthumous inverifiable paradises entered the market! Secularization
of church lands! Separation of state and religion! Well, let's go back
to the good old apostolic days when we were too weak to wage any wars,
let's play the "brotherhood" theme again; Now, of course, some of us who
remember the Crusades and the division on the world in two colonizable
halves (Spanish and Portugese) might have some reservations about this
newly found brotherhood in redemption of all people of the Earth. But, 
then. look again where we have the largest increase in catholic popu-
lation: the Third World! Now, these people could not care less about
Crusades and fights since they are already defeated, desperately defea-
ted in the economci race. What they want to hear is that they are, in some
way, similar to those people who live in nice houses and drive glitzy
cars; maybe even that they are their "brothers"...Well, as long as they
pay....

Enjoy!
-- 
Radu T. Tomescu at UCBerkeley
Department of Economics

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