CatholicLady

tl;dr = to long didn't read

The official stance is...  "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly"
 
Beyond that belief can vary from person to person.
 
We have in addition to the account of Genesis in the Old Testament, we have through modern revelation an account of the Lord revealing it to Moses and to Abraham.  We also have statement showing that the Jaredites had an account of it and so did the Nephites.
 
Needless to say there is plenty of pointers in the LDS faith to how important God thinks the account of Gensis is given his preservation and restoration of the account.  That could lead to a lot of people taking it very seriously

Thanks, JAG.
 
I will just leave her page alone and not venture to it but will keep her as a friend on FB for now.

I am sorry for having offended you, CatholicLady. I enjoy your conversation and appreciate your attempts to answer our questions.

To an extent I would concur with your summary, though I do feel a little more ought to be said.
 
On the subject of intent, I still don't think there's much of a distance between our varying positions. For an action that has good and bad results to be okay, you have to be performing the action for the purpose of bringing about the good effect. In other words, if one of the effects was absent, the one you intend is the one that, if lacking, would cause you not to perform the action.
 
So, again, the issue seems to be intrinsically evil actions. Basically the Catholic mindset goes something like this: God gave us a command not to murder, so we cannot murder. As far as that goes, I don't think there's a lot of debate. That being said, I think most people would also agree that some acts resulting in the death of an innocent person are murder, and others that are not. The hard part is deciding where exactly to draw that line.
 
Certainly proximity to the result is a factor, at least in the case of murder. If I shoot an child, then virtually everybody would agree that I murdered them. If in a just war I bomb a large military installation, it probably isn't murder even though there's almost certainly somebody there who's an innocent non-combatant. In most cases it's probably not outlandishly difficult to make the distinction, but in the really hard cases you have to get into really fine details.
 
I recognize that Catholics can get "lawyerly" and "split hairs" in those cases, but again God told us not to murder and, in the absence of divine revelation to the contrary, we don't really have a mechanism to avoid that rule.
 
Where I would contend with the "pharisaic" accusation is that the Pharisees got in trouble by increasing the strictness of commandments (in order to avoid the near occasion of violating them) and they were hipocrites who followed the ordinances but who were motivated by pride more than a love of God. Obviously we are willing to go to great length to cut it very close on some commandments, which I think gets us out of the first half of that. As for the second part, that's probably an issue amongst some people in every church.

Several Catholics have joined fairly recently. Interesting trend. Welcome to the forums :)

Welcome to the Forums!

What is the average density of Europa?

105 persons per km2?

Haha  We're doing some testing on the lag time.  :)

there's some that I'll doing all the pleading i can with God to let them get more in the next life.... and then there's some that could use a good kick in the butt, maybe a couple that could use an around the world wedgie. All in all they seem to be good folks.
(and i can say the same about LDS too lol)

I am a scientist and engineer as well as a devout High Priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I deal with secular and religious issues on a daily basis.  For the most part I enjoy and applaud the religious devout regardless of religion.  But I also recognize that many of the greatest atrocities in history are mostly done by devout believers in the name of G-d and religion.  I forget the exact play but Shakespeare dealt in part with the issue of devout believers when a King went among his army incognito prior to a very important battle.  The question arises who is responsible for the evils of war - the king or his followers?  The king argues that each individual should be held accountable for their actions.  The men argue that the king is responsible for the results of going to war.
 
Shakespeare is smart avoid the main problems and does not resolve the discussion.  Many are of the notion that what ever their religion teaches they must believe to be saved - that such is the actual exorcize and expression of faith.  I am not of this thought.  Faith has a place but it was never intended to replace the truth.  Faith is a means to the truth - not an excuse to ignore it.
 
With this in mind I am more interested in what an individual believes and what sacrifices they have made in their path to truth.  I am not interested in what the Catholic church teaches - I am interested in what you believe and why you believe what you do.  As part of my scientific work - I test empirical elements to their very limits to determine their validity.  If you like I will take you on a journey for truth that we can walk together and make serious considerations.  I have no intention to offend you but to clarify what you believe and why.
 
Jesus said that if we will do his word we will know that his word is true.  He did not say it is true because it is written in scripture or taught at church.  I am not discounting scripture or religion - except that scripture and religion has failed as a means of resolving differences among devout Christians.

Hopefully Clair will jump in here too, but in the mean time here's my answer :)
Self defense is when you exert as much force as is necessary in order to try and stop the attack of an aggressor. An unborn baby is not "attacking" his or her mother. It is not the baby's fault that his existence is putting his mom's life at risk. He is completely innocent because he isn't committing any sin, and the fact that his existence is putting his mom's life at risk is 100% due to natural causes, not due to an evil baby deliberately attacking his mom. 
 
An intruder going into your house with a knife and trying to stab you is not the same thing as the presence of a baby inside your body resulting in medical problems.  

I pretty much agree with Vort's reply. Whatever harm may come, the child has taken no intentional action to cause it. Self-defense, at least as I understand it, normally carries with it the assumption that the other person is making a conscious effort to do you harm

Hmm. I am leaning towards agreeing with Anatess and CatholicLady, in terms of, intent does change morality. When a man goes to war to protect his home and family, and takes lives in the process, it is not murder. I guess that could be debated by some, but I suppose another concept might be if one is attacked, and the victim is able to free themselves by killing their attacker - that's not murder either, it's self defense, by intent. That's my thought process anyway.

To be fair, some of us are trying to comprehend the Catholic doctrine and mindset, while others are debating it as philosophically unsubstantiable. These discussions appear similar, but are in reality two entirely different (though related) things.

If the intended outcome is to kill the baby, then yes, it seems they would want the baby to die, if that is what they are trying to do. No, it is not permissible to "remove" (aka, kill) the baby.
 
No, Catholicism teaches that abortion is not moral. If the intent is removal of the uterus in order to kill the baby, no, that is not allowed. If the uterus is cancerous, however, then yes. It would be permissible to remove a cancerous uterus. If there happens to be a baby in that cancerous uterus, and the baby dies as a side effect of the cancer treatment hysterectomy, that is not considered an abortion, and is not immoral. 

When talking about intent for the purposes of moral decisions, we basically mean "why am I doing this." You take the medicine knowing full well you're going to become drowsy, but that's not the reason why you took it. You took it for the pain, and becoming drowsy is a side effect you're willing to endure.
 
On Vort's scenario, I'll start by saying that I honestly think more details are needed on the exact cause of what's killing the mother, but I will try to muck my way through it anyway.
 
First, I'm going to skip intent and weighing the good/bad, because I don't think there's much debate on that part of it. I will move on to the intrinsic evil bit.
 
I'll start by saying that directly killing the child is an intrinsic evil. That means you cannot ever "cut it out", use abortion inducing drugs, ect. You can not do any of those things even if it means the death of the mother is probable. The reason for this is because that baby, even if it isn't viable, is still a human being with every bit as much right to live as the mother. Prolonging one person's life for any number of years does not justify ending another's, even if death is inevitable.
 
Now, as for what treatment options are available, again some of the details here matter. If the uterus was defective and is the reason the mother and baby would die, then removing the defective uterus is licit.  If the woman has some sort of condition apart from the uterus that is the reason why she is likely to die, then she can pursue treatment for that condition, but she would not be allowed to cut out the uterus (as in this scenario it has nothing to do with the condition).
 
And there have been three replies since I started typing. When did this thread blow up so much? :)

As I recall, the youngest (human) mother on record was 5 or 6. But of course, that is not the point.
  
The point is, what if this is not possible? What if the baby will kill the mother before it (the baby) becomes viable? Though uncommon, this does occasionally happen. Does Catholic doctrine require the complete removal of the "defective" uterus with concomitant unavoidable loss of the baby instead of a straightforward termination of the pregnancy?
 
I'm not passing judgment on Catholic doctrine or practice. I simply want to know if this is actually the Catholic mindset.

Yes.

Yes.

How do I, as a Catholic, reconcile those guys having multiple wives? Well those guys were all in the Old Testament. None of them were the founder of Catholicism. We believe that when Jesus came, he brought forth a new faith - Christianity. If Jesus had multiple wives, or endorsed having multiple wives, I'd probably have a hard time reconciling the fact that Catholicism doesnt see it as acceptible.

When I study other faiths (or other people in general), I've learned to put myself in their shoes and think as they would think (which is different than how I would think).
 
So, putting on my CatholicLady shoes, I can see follow you thoughts and understand your perspective.  PS- you're good at explaining things.
 
My Jane "shoes" and thought processes are different, and lead to a different conclusion.  But that's a whole different story (and we've beaten it to death).

This is more for Claire, but you might still enjoy discussing it with your husband CatholicLady.
 
The implications of the revelation on polygamy should lead to a good discussion between you and your boyfriend. The revelation teaches that marriages can be eternally binding. It goes through a few scenarios (sounding somewhat legalese).
 
 
If you are not married for eternity, but rather only until death frees one of you from the covenant, then you have no claim on each other after this life.
 
 
There's two scenarios here. If the two of you are married and the officiator pronounces it to be binding "forever and ever and always" or whatever phrasing is desired, that's really just a grand deception. The ordinance (sacrament) must be "by [the Lord's] word" by someone "anointed and appointed unto this power". Priesthood authority and all that. The only place where this can be done is in the temple.
 
Additionally, if the two of you are married in the temple by someone with authority (we use the term "sealed" for this, or sometime "temple marriages", and even "celestial marriage") you must continue faithful. This is captured in the clause "sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise". If one of you breaks the covenant, God will not force the other to be bound.
 
The blessings of such are glorious (and referenced in another one of your threads):
 
 
I would encourage you to have a discussion with your boyfriend about what kind of marriage he envisions for the two of you.

As a closing comment to this subthread about cows...
 
The argument I heard was that the ratio of men to women in the early church was 1:2 or 1:3.  To prevent the creation of large numbers of fertile but childless single women, men were allowed to practice polygyny for a while.  The fertility rates of women in polygamous versus monogamous unions was never an issue that I heard about.   However, this theory does not explain why polyandry also emerged.
 
Honestly, when I read the comments above I thought I had accidentally stumbled onto the website of The Onion.  
 
CatholicLady, see what we started?