Consistent Life Ethic

Submitted post on Consistent Life Ethic website:

"I have always wondered why the Catholic Church takes such a strong stand on abortion, justifying the stand as protecting the soul of the unborn, yet they take no public stand on catholics killing others in military combat, an action that is clearly in violation of Jesus teachings. I have been asking that question since the end of the Vietnam War. Mostly I get dismissed with "I'll have to ask ___, come back later. One priest used "papal infallibility" as the justification. One priest stated that the Vatican is afraid their public image would suffer severely if they took a stand that would prohibit catholics around the world from engaging in military combat for conscientious reasons. Some admitted that the Vatican silence on this issue made NO sense to them. There is a line in one (or more) of the catechisms that states something like "anyone who knowing supports actions of another that are in conflict with the teachings of the church authority is equally guilty of ..." or something like that. The church teaches that killing is a sin, it is part of our deposit of faith. Why has the magisterium NOT addressed this issue?"

Ok, I'm going to weigh in, here (I weigh 205, lol)

(I don't believe in souls. At least not in the sense of a non-physical identity that inhabits our bodies and migrates elsewhere upon death. The JW's say it was originally a word that meant our bodies, which is the only way I give the term truth/meaning. But maybe there is a reality that corresponds to the funkier understanding, which I will explain).

There is a theory of Just War in the Catholic doctrine. God is a man of war, the old testament says. Self-defense is acceptable, and the Pope has his security detail/Swiss guards, of which I cannot say if they are authorized to use lethal force. I would assume they would try to avoid killing an assassin, if possible. In any case, almost everybody kills spiders or whatnot in their homes, although the truly compassionate attitude of loving-kindness should probably facilitate nonviolence to even the smallest or deadliest of animals, if possible. Vegetarianism figures into this, as well. But, since we're talking about not taking life...well plants are living things, too. And we've got to eat. Some believe, including scientists, that all matter has consciousness, such as the water depicted in the movie what the bleep do we know. An honest look at ourselves shows that we are things, like any other thing, such as a robot, albeit designed by eons of evolution instead of a human engineer during a single lifetime. Didn't Jesus say he was a rock?

This brings up the question, what is the difference between life and consciousness? And is death merely a change in form? What is a unit of consciousness? We perceive distinction, but perhaps everything is One, as they say, that unity being termed God, which you are a part of, whether you believe it or not, recognize it or not, or call it that or not. And death is like becoming the dead skin cells of the God-organism, fallen leaves, that fertilize the soil and create new life to sustain it in the future. We even have a concept of Death, as a living being who kills us. It's all alive. Perhaps even the emptiness, the void, is a kind of form of life. I was just thinking about naming two pet dogs Being and Nothingness. I got a chuckle out of that.

If we believe in prayer, we believe in telepathy, so every thought we have ever had has been heard by someone or something other than ourselves. In fact, the very concept of self is diminished, as we perceive other's thoughts within our own minds. So, "our" ideas live on, and we obtain a kind of immortality of effect in the world, although our bodies and consciousness will cease upon death. Of course, if our consciousness has come from an external source all along, then we can conceivably continue to exist beyond death. If all your thoughts, words, and actions come from "God," i.e. you are only a medium/vessel, or whatnot, for a source, then your memes will persist and your program will propagate, and possibly the detailed personal experience of your life will be added to, even after death, in a machine or the mind of a genius or whatever else, the robots of planet Organon, lol.

This might seem to explain why Catholic doctrine has not forbidden killing, despite it being the xth commandment. We have to kill to eat. Humans are animals. And they wouldn't be very popular if they decreed vegetarianism, or everybody to stop eating plantlife altogether, and sweep in front of them, like the Jains. Cannibalism is obviously not acceptable to any valid, much less universal, moral system -unless it is in the form of a ritual like the Eucharist. Even vegetables. I had a recent thought- what if you knew you were going to die in a week, cut off your legs to feed a starving friend, and somehow both anaesthetized the pain and did heroin until death, so that you felt no pain and actually felt better during your remaining time... Sorry. I know that's not really the happiest thought experiment. It might not be the unhappiest, though, especially if you had achieved your life's goal(s), and left the world a better place than you found it. Anyway, eating the body of Christ might be something like that. Eat a rock. Get your minerals.