Not Only Words

Many medical doctors say that, although a human life is important, it needs to have some other component to it, namely a proper quality of one's existence, in order that it may be valued and, therefore, protected.

This pattern of thinking is common in so-called culture of death. The terminology, regardless of its importance, is not the main preoccupation, though, when it comes to the issue of active life's protection: where mere words may offend*, actions evangelize.

If  physicians want –  really, without any fear, and useless rhetoric – act against the culture of death, they all shall have in their mind that a patient is always the greatest good, not only “the great good  for the sake or goods, features, or opinion (s)he is currently holding.”


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 Tomasz, Racibórz +

* I know a professor who states that labeling his views with the culture of death phrase is extremely hurting and offends him. After careful consideration, I must admit that it is better for us to promote the culture of life than to speak about the culture of death. 

Live and let me live

Routledge Encyclopedia of Bioethics(2003) informs its readers that there are 4 models of law patterns that regulate most countries' attitude toward the problem of abortion; they are as follows:

1. a model of prohibition;

2. a model of permission;

3. a model of prescription; and

4. a model of privacy.

In is sad, though, that - regardless of the great knowledge possessed by authors of the said encyclopedia - none of their models listed above mention a word on the support given to a pregnant woman and her baby, whose(if only cared for) favorite models would, in most cases, respectively be : "Live and let me live."

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Tomasz, Racibórz +

The Gospel of Heaven, the Gospel of Love(On the Evangelistic Evangelization)

Our Gospel, the biggest piece of good news for the whole world, provides us all with the hope of salvation.
The said(most beautiful) fact may, unfortunately, be the source of accusations made by some thinkers toward believers:
"You, Christians, care only for heaven while it is this world that suffers a lot" – it's often heard. In some sense just-mentioned materialistic philosophers are right(as the faithful shall focus mainly on God & His Domain), still they seem to overlook a very important point: Every heaven-taker shall be, through the imitation of Christs' deeds for poor, blind, and crippled people, a love-giver first.
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Tomasz, Racibórz +

PS Please pray for my uncle who passed away a few days ago.

Loving or Using: On People & Things

"When does the human life begin?", "is the mind of an adult ape developed more that the one of 3 year-old child?","what constitutes individual's right to life?" These, among many other questions, are very interesting as parts of the philosophical speculation, yet very dangerous when one uses them as an ideological weapon.

It is so for the one simple reason: whenever someone tries to define, on any basis, whose lives shall be respected some kind of tyranny is about to come*.
 
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 Tomasz, Racibórz +

*The whole issue of abortion, euthanasia & assisted suicide comes to us as a result of egoism in its peak point. The one that, strengthen by the tyranny of relativism, tries to demand of you and me that we love things (and own comfort) more than people. 

You Can't Deny...

Many people who agree on the existence of God deny life everlasting (either in heaven or hell) at the same time.
Their attitude seems to be wrong, for the emanation of Divine Will, Love, and Justice shall be -- due to perfection of the Giver -- endless.
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Tomasz, Racibórz +

The Face of Hope

Some people, among them philosophers and logicians, say that God is only a technical term or meaningless word.Others try to convince us, Christians, that human beings are evil and can only bring disastrous situations upon themselves or the planet they live in.

Neither the first nor the second statement is true:

Please look at the Holy Cross, see the countenance of Jesus Christ and realise how real and beautiful the Face of God-Man can be...
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Tomasz, Racibórz

PS. John Paul II, the true philosopher, will be happy to hear both  "we love you" and "we read your books on the regular basis."
Do not forget about this and pray for me, please. Blessed Easter Triduum to you all!

Good Death and Evil Minds

The knowledge of history is a vital, yet sometimes neglected part of humane education.
Nevertheless, it can provide so-called modern man with the new outlook on many issues.

One of these is the issue euthanasia: the one that hasn't been associated so much with assisted suicide back in the Ancient Times, oppose to how people find it these days.

Famous Roman historian Suetonius, to give you just one example, reported that Emperor Augustus experienced an euthanasia (good death) while... Passing away in his wife's arms.

Wouldn't it be even better for all dying human beings to die in arms of Jesus or Mary? Just mentioned kind of euthanasia – at least for me – wouldn't be controversial at all...

People must never forget about their history. If they do then, sooner or later, language distorted by evil minds will bring disasters upon the whole world they live in.
--
Tomasz, Racibórz

Give them right to love you (for all who suffer)

The effective exercise of a right
springing not from the individual who possesses it, but
from other men who consider themselves as being under a
certain obligation towards him

Simone Weil

Above-cited, famous words of Simone Weil, the influential French philosopher of the 20th century, can be found in her book entitled "Needs for Root"(Paris, 1949). Weil, a gnostic, who wanted to know God gives us here some interesting, yet not fully developed model for dealing with virtually any social problem of our times:

Yes, there would not be a single suicide, abortion, euthanasia or unjust war in our world if all people recognized their obligations toward each other.

But here is something else to figure out:

What are said obligations, and where to find them? No philosopher can tell you this - only God , the One Who gave you The Ten Commandments, will.

Knowing this - no matter how sad you may be right now - do not give up your hope: seek and love Him and His creatures... For love is a right of Creator and us all - the one that only you, the remarkable co-operator with God, may make effective in perhaps small, yet still important scale.
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Tomasz, Racibórz

Some strange believers ( on the phenomena of so-called new atheism)

Source: Google search engine

Atheism is, unfortunately,  a constant part of some people's way of thinking.
Generally speaking, the one can be split into two branches - the old atheism and the new one.

The first one glorifies scepticism, while the later seems to be based on some kind of illusionary certainty ( "I do not believe that God exists'' of young Edith Stein versus ''I am sure that there is no God, and I will prove it'' of Dawkins).

The second, ''hard'' version of unbelief seems to be much more dangerous at first glance. But please, just take a closer look on this issue: someone who claims that he/she is sure of something, at the same time starts( paradoxically) to be open to the reality of God.

Such person does so by affirmation that there is such thing as a sureness - the beautiful gate that may eventually lead one to the Truth.
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Tomasz, Racibórz

PS.  There is always hope. Pray to Mary -especially to Her immaculate Heart - for the conversion of  Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett...Perhaps a modern counterpart of St. Paul lives among them or theirs followers.

PS2. Happy Thanksgiving Day to all the friends from the United States of America.

PS3. Pray for me too.

Are you ready for such world?

Some major conference concering life issues took place at Princeton University last week (look at: http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1722/pub_detail.asp).

One of its participants, professor Singer, stated that:

“An infant has no moral status because he is not self-aware”.

Let's think over his statement for a while. Although I'm neither an ethicist nor a biologist, it is obvious to me that so-called self-awareness may be observed (to a some degree) among some species of animals (for further reading please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capuchin_monkey).
Moreover above-mentioned self-awareness has absolutely nothing to do with moral issues.

Argumentation that professor Singer gave, may lead us to some terrible world of future  in which - as I see it:

1) A mature animal would be granted with greater scope of rights, when compared to some young or disabled human being;

2) Morality would be assessed by some psychological tests and tools, and not in the reference to the human heart.

Are we ready for such world, the one full of wise words... And absurdity?

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Tomasz, Racibórz

PS. Jesus, give us the Wisdom.

On some uncontaminated sources ( What the philosophy is about)

It can by said that so-called modern philosophy that fascinates so many people has nothing to do with the real philosophy.
Just take a look at the names of some well known philosophical branches of  20th century :

-Deconstructivism
-Absurdism
-Nihilism 
(...)

The real philosophy shall lead a thinker to the Wisdom, in other words to the Unity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.  Now, do you know Whose above-mentioned atributes are?

Yes, a philosopher shall be at least open to God's existence, and Neither Derrida nor Camus and Nietzsche were.

So if you want to be the Philosopher someday,  you would better start with good and reliable names on your ''must read'' list: 


St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustin,  St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, Joseph Mary Bochenski or John Paul II definitely knew what  the philosophy is about.

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Tomasz, Racibórz

PS. Please, pray for me.

The Source

Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) – one of the most popular modern thinker stated in a title of his famous essay that existentialism is humanism. I do not want to polemize with such a great author yet in my opinion the humanism begins with a person - and never does with an ideology. Therefore only Jesus can be seen as the holy source of humanism.

Today one may pick and choose from many „-isms”. That's why it is important to make a wise decision when it is comes to decide on a way of living. Prior to the decision always look at the role and place of human being within any philosophical/religious system that seems to be good for you.

Tomasz, Racibórz