Catholics for a Culture of Death
A group of St. Louis area Catholics led by former U.S. senator Tom Eagleton has challenged church leaders by forming Catholics for Amendment 2.
In a two-page letter sent by e-mail last week to fellow Catholics, the group laid out its reasons for supporting the ballot measure that would protect stem-cell research in Missouri.
Passage would ensure that research could go forward and treatments would be available in Missouri. It would keep Missouri on par with other states by allowing any research and treatment permitted under federal law. And it is moderate in its approach, the letter said.
“Some people want to ban all stem cell research,” the letter said. “At the other extreme there are those who would like to see research proceed completely unfettered. We believe that Amendment 2 strikes a responsible balance … (with) clear ethical boundaries and safety guidelines.”
The letter was signed by the group’s 30-member steering committee, made up mostly of people connected to Washington University and various medical institutions, and including Eagleton, a Democrat, and former state senator Anita Yeckel, a Republican.
The letter is a direct challenge to Missouri’s Catholic bishops, who also sent letters last week to parishioners. Those letters urged the faithful to vote against Amendment 2.
Tom Eagleton was briefly a Vice-Presidential Candidate who stepped down after his electro-shock treatments were revealed is leading this effort. It makes you wonder if he received too many or too few treatments. This group who has members who post on Daily Kos is just another one of those faux Catholic groups who will flat-out lie for their agenda. Who is it that wants to ban all stem-cell research?
CATHOLICS FOR AMENDMENT 2 is putting together a statement to demonstrate Catholic support for Amendment 2 in Missouri which would keep vitally necessary embryonic/SCNT research. I ask my fellow Catholics in Missouri to sign on and send ultra-traditionalist Arcbishop [sic] Burke (St. Louis) and Opus Dei Bishop Finn (KC) a message that this is our Church too and that the faithful do support this very pro-life research.
By this definition Dr. Josef Mengele was also pro-life. So what if the research leads to the death of some, after all they were only Jews/embryos. Not really human you know and they don't look like us. Imagine how many lives we can save by our research.
They are also not afraid to continue the lies in the amendment itself.
Fact #3: Stem cell research does not involve the cloning of a human being, and Amendment 2 strictly bans any attempt to do so. What Amendment 2 does permit (as long as federal law permits) is the creation of stem cells through a process that utilizes a patient's own single skin cell and an unfertilized egg. There is no sperm involved and no fertilization. This process is sometimes called "therapeutic cloning" because it copies the patient's own cell, and the new cells can potentially be used to treat the patient's disease. Amendment 2 specifically bans any attempt to initiate a pregnancy with these cells or to create a human version of Dolly the Sheep. Without Amendment 2, cloning a person is entirely legal in Missouri. Amendment 2 will prohibit it.
Unbelievable. So copying the persons cells is not cloning? That using the same process (SCNT) to create Dolly the Sheep is also not cloning. That somehow if you kill early that a clone was never created. That somehow if they implant an embryo that they say was not cloned if implanted into a uterus then becomes a clone?
There letter also goes on with the false claim that the church opposed using cadavers for research, a subject I covered before. Their understanding of Church history is just as tenuous as their understanding of moral theology.
I can easily understand secular sources advancing such arguments, but I totally fail to understand Catholics doing so. Obviously they must believe we are a soul body composite. That all living things have a soul. Do they think embryos have a animal soul that somehow becomes an human one at implantation or birth? That Jesus before becoming fully God/fully Man, was once fully God, fully animal? When Mary went to the house of Zechariah it could well be the case that Jesus as embryo had not yet implanted into Mary's womb since this roughly occurs seven to ten days after ovulation. By their definition a similar aged embryo can be killed for medical research yet Elizabeth responded at the sight of Mary by saying "...that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Strangely John the Baptist responded in the womb to the presence of an embryo.
Known as 
Listen up, we need to stop referring to people like this as Catholics. They are no longer Catholics. They are informal heretics. They have denied Christ by denying His Church. If we treat them as Catholics, we are only lying to them and to ourselves and doing no one a favour. Surely there must be an academic name for the Right to Kill heresy and making people feel guilty for not supporting it. Necrofacsism sound ok? Neroism?
I've dealt with and debunk the claims we're a culture of death, but don't fear I am just stopping by to wish you all a Happy Guy Fawkes Day. May he burn in effiegy.
Of course, had he succeeded, all the nasty things said on this site about Islam, would have been said about Catholicism. Because after all, he was trying to destroy the legislative body of the greatest, most free nation in existence at that time. (*)
(*) I know Catholics were oppressed at that time, but just like we have repressed groups in democracies today, they too had them then.
You need to define what is meant by Culture of Death and how it is being applied to our current situation before you can debunk anything.
Are you unable to grasp the simple notion that it is not a chronological term? It is not a synonym for the Enlightenment or any other single era, intellectual movement, or political power.
I'm sure you are familiar with the straw man fallacy. Stop using it.
Should be called: "People who formally referred to themselves as Catholics now invalidating their Catholicity by approving of Amendment 2."
Fine Jay, how about you or someone else on this board define "culture of death", that way when I totally dismantle your argument, you won't have the strawman fallacy to hide behind.
I would bet money that the "Catholicity" of these people will not be challenged by the hierarchy, even after the election. The American Catholic Church has a scandal on its hands that puts the so-called pedophile priests to shame, but unlike that scandal, this one just goes on and on and on without so much as a nod to stop it. I'm waiting to count how many cardinals come to officiate at Ted Kennedy's funeral. I would not be surprised to see the Vatican send a representative.
Are you sure, Hoodlum, that you can demonstrate that something doesn't exist when you don't know what it is? Interesting... Will you dismantle any argument I put forth? This sounds like a fun game. In reality, though, it seems like nothing more than prejudice. And you are getting frustrated when your assumptions about the "stupid Christians" (and/or those you assume to be Christians) are shown to be false.
What ethical system are you working from? Mere rule-based ethics? Deonotological ethics? Utilitarianism? Another form of consequentialism? I doubt that you subscribe to virtue ethics. If you don't know, you really shouldn't be using ethical assumptions in your arguments as you are likely just working on the basis of the system you are categorically trying to refute (itself a tedious position). Since the notion of the "Culture of Death" (in my understanding) deals almost primarily with ethics, it would be impossible to operationalize the term within your system without knowing what your system is.
I wonder how Hoodlum got the silly idea that he had "debunked" or "dismantled" anything?
All he has ever done is argue, spout off a couple of non-salient facts, and skuttled off - he sounds like a first year liberal arts major.
As to the embryonic stem cell issue:
As a people, we will surely reap what we sow.
First embryos; who next?
There is now a movement afoot in the UK to KILL babies born with "severe abnormalities and deformities" because they use up too much of the state's dollars to tend to them.
How long before the idea spreads to here? Next we will be discussing the drain on healthcare dollars that the crippled, disabled, mentally challenged, the old, and infirm cause.
This is indeed a 'culture of death'.
Enlightenment - oh fershur! What a crock.
What's next - Catholics for Satan?
Hoodlum, you've already proved you know very little about the Middle Ages. Now you're trying to show you know nothing about posting a sound argument. Jay was merely pointed out that in order to put forth your argument, you need to define the terms and the application.
It's not enough to keep doing the Internet version of "No I'm not; YOU are" and "Nyah! Nyah! Guy Fawkes is burning, you Papists! Nyah! Nyah!" It's not unlike a small child saying, "I don't like XYZ! Mommy, tell me what XYZ means!"
Miss Jean - I couldn't say it any better! Well done...
THere is an old saying that nothing so proves a person's ignorance than opening their mouths. THis yahoo group of 'catholics' is about informed on embroyonic stem cell research as hoodlum is on medieval or enlightenment philosophy. IN fact, those post might well be some of the most philosophically inept dross I've seen in awhile. Just troll back to the daily kos where you belong.