Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The RCC and GOP Have to Muck Out Their Own Stables

It doesn't much matter what opponents to rigidity in the Vatican and corruption in the Republican Party say. Both institutions have to reform themselves. If that happens, there is hope for the Roman Catholic Church and the Republican Party. If it doesn't happen, both have been so weakened by their greed for power that they will collapse. One of the peculiarities of our world is that both the RCC and the GOP use the sophistry of dictators: Power equals moral superiority. Nothing equals moral superiority except being morally superior. And both the RCC and GOP are immoral. Whether you believe in a personal God that issues demerits for wrongdoing, or you believe that cooperating with positive energies makes life easier, there are universal concepts of immoral behavior, which cannot be denied: Lying is wrong. Deceiving is wrong. Cheating is wrong. Molesting children is wrong. Claiming that man-made rules are God-made is wrong. Protecting the rich and violating the poor is wrong. Unfunded mandates are wrong. Taking advantage of the elderly is wrong. Denouncing sinners while one is sinning is wrong. Claiming God supports any group is wrong. Claiming to speak for God is wrong. And the end never justifies the means. That concept is always wrong.

1 comment:

Barry Schwartz said...

In what way do you suspect the RCC will collapse?

Also, I think it is not difficult to deny the "immorality" of the list you give, by means of counterexamples. For example, lying is not "wrong" if you are the Allied forces in World War II, trying to deceive the Axis forces. Ethical systems do not exist apart from the physical environment, which is not known absolutely, and so ethics cannot be absolute. The genesis of ethical systems is an empirical question requiring scientific study; properly it is a branch of anthropology. Failure to classify comparative ethics as an empirical science is a major source of the human race's bafflement and contention.