Month: April 2005

A Spectator Of Reality (TV, That Is)

You know you’re a couch potato when you watch reality on TV.

Reality shows, that is.

This season I’ve been watching "Survivor: Palau," "The Amazing Race 7," and "The Apprentice [3]."  I tend to be an on- and off-viewer of these shows, and usually hop on the bandwagon after the first season — and the initial fad — has passed by.  I didn’t start watching "Survivor" or "The Apprentice" until Season 2.  I only started regularly watching "The Amazing Race" this season, and that was because of the entrance of "Survivor"-sweethearts Amber Brkich and Rob Mariano into the Race.

One of the interesting aspects of the reality shows is the moral issues that arise during the course of the season.  For example, if you watched "The Amazing Race" this week, you may have noticed that when one of the leading teams flipped its jeep, another leading team stopped but others (notably Rob ‘n Ambuh) sped on.  Later, Rob and Amber were especially held up for scorn by the team that stopped (Lynn and Alex) because R & A leapfrogged into second while Lynn and Alex ended up in fourth.

So, were Lynn and Alex right?  Was it a moral obligation to stop?

If practical assistance could be given such as medical care or the sacraments, sure.  Human life is much more important than any game — or the possibility of a million dollars.  Of course, if you can call for help, you should; and if you have actually witnessed the accident occur, you should report that to the authorities.  But if all one could do would be to murmur sympathetically and gawk at the accident, there is no obligation to stop, anymore than there would be if you saw the same accident by the side of the road on your way to work.    Indeed, when you would be a hindrance by staying, moving along — and thus keeping the accident site clear of spectators (as distinguished from witnesses) — would be the right thing to do.

The Passing of John Paul II

Here at Catholic Answers we’re getting reports that the pope has indeed passed.

Still trying to verify this from other sources.

If you have any, please leave them in the combox.

Either way, let’s pray for his soul and for the Church.

UPDATE: More Info Here.

BACKGROUND INFO ON WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A POPE DIES.

MORE.

2ND UPDATE: INFO ON THE SEPTIC SHOCK THE POPE HAS SUFFERED.

The Clone Wars

Clonewars_1We’ve been hearing about the Clone Wars ever since Alec Guinness first mentioned them in the original Star Wars movie back in 1977.

But we’ve never seen them.

Even now we probably won’t really get to see them on the big screen. The first clone war begins at the end of Episode II and the last is reported to end in Episode III, probably (this is speculation on my part, so don’t spoil it, anybody who has specific knowledge) early so that the story can focus on the fall of Annakin Skywalker.

But we have the unique chance to see the Clone Wars on the small screen, either TV or computer. Lucas contracted to have a clone war cartoon series made by cartoon action-master Genndy Tartakovsky (known for such action-oriented toons as The Powerpuff Girls and the visually-stunning Samuari Jack) for Cartoon Network.

The results turned out well enough that Lucas asked Tartakovsky to go back to the drawing board and do a sequel clone war cartoon series that would lead directly in to Episode III. In fact, the final shot of the last animated clone war toon is supposed to be the same as the opening shot of Episode III (immediately after the roll-up).

Events in the second clone war toon series also directly set the stage for the Episode III roll-up, which refers to events occurring in the second animated series, conferring on this at least a semi-canonical status (unlike the rest of the "Expanded Universe" materials).

This presents Episode III spoiler-avoiders with a unique dilemmaopportunity. Watching the antimated clone war series ain’t really spoiling Episode III for oneself if Lucas has put the material out there specifically to set the stage for Episode III, so you could watch them in good conscience.

If you wanna do that, how do you go about doing it?

Well, chapters 1-20 are now out on a DVD called Star Wars: Clone Wars, Volume 1.

You can also read a brief, spoiler-light summary of them here.

Chapters 21-25, the ones that immediately set the stage for Episode III aren’t on DVD yet (and I haven’t been able to find out when they will be) BUT, for a limited time only, you can

WATCH THEM ONLINE HERE.

For those who care about such things, here is my non-spoiler review of the two series:

The first twenty chapters were produced as 3 1/2 minute segments which, together, form a story 69 minutes long. The need to have each 3 1/2 minutes form a self-contained chapter severely hampers story development and tilts the series too heavily toward action rather than plot or character development, though Star Wars fans will still want to see the series. In my opinion the series gets better as it goes, with more plot and character development occuring as it progresses. The action also gets better, and the climax of Annakin’s personal arc is particularly effective, as it is clear he is still moving toward the Dark Side.

The second series of five episodes has chapters that are twelve minutes long (for a total of an hour), and this makes a night-and-day difference. Suddenly there is far more room for plot and character development, and the second series is far superior to the first. The series is more richly-drawn, both metaphorically (better character development) and literally (better animation). The backgrounds are particularly good (even though I saw them on a 2" x 3" screen). There are significant bits of Jedi lore that are filled in, and the climactic battle that sets the stage for Episode III really has some surprisingly dramatic action, including intense and creative light saber work that I’m hoping they copy (or even surpass) on the big screen.

Tenth Planet Discovered!

(Reuters) Science-fiction writers have long dreamed about the legendary Planet X, but now scientists have actually discovered it. Astronomers at the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles today announced the discovery of the solar system’s tenth planet.

"This is a tremendously exciting discovery," said Olaf Gustafsen, the observatory’s chief astronomer. "The last time a planet was discovered was in 1930, and even that has been controversial."

Gustafsen refers to the discovery of Pluto, an object so tiny that many have suggested it is not a planet at all but is instead one of the many objects of the solar system’s Kuiper belt.

"There’s no doubt about the new planet," Gustafsen said. "It’s larger than four other planets of the solar system–Pluto, Mercury, Mars, and Venus–making Planet X a rival for earth in size."

The object has been temporarily named called "Planet X" by astronomers because it is the tenth planet discovered, and "X" is Latin for "ten."

Astronomers plan to give it a new name with a mythological origin in the near future. "Personally, I’m rooting for ‘Yuggoth,’" said Gustafsen.

The planet was discovered with the aide of high powered computing equipment being used to identify individual objects within the Kuiper belt.

"The object was so large compared to all the known Kuiper belt objects that we couldn’t believe it," Gustafsen said. "At first we thought it was just a practical joke being played by a colleague typing in phony data on a computer, but it turned out to be real."

Despite its vast distance from the sun, which Gustafsen says is a staggering 98 million miles, scientists have been able to determine a remarkable number of things about Planet X. For example, it has one large moon, it has a nickle-iron core, and it has a rotational period almost identical to the earth, compared to most planets, which have very different rotational periods.

"Surprising as it may seem," Gustafsen says, "rotationally this is a daily planet."

GET THE STORY.

Role-Playing Games

A reader writes:

I enjoy it when you blog about role playing games, comic books, etc.  During my high school days, I played AD&D and the Warhammer table top game with my friends.  I recall that some Evangelical Christians had a problem with role playing games in general and with AD&D in particular.  But since that was before my conversion, I payed them little heed.

During my conversion, which was heavily influenced by Evangelical Protestants, I came to the realization that much of what I believed was wrong.  Although the subject never came up, I suspect that my Protestant friends would have discouraged me from playing RPGs.  Since my conversion I haven’t played them at all, except for the computer variety, nor do I talk about them with my newer Catholic friends.

So here, finally, are my questions:

1.  When the topic of the "danger" of RPGs was hot, do you happen to know if any Orthodox Catholic leaders at the time commented on it?

I don’t know of any, but then I wasn’t Catholic back then, either. I was maybe just discovering Christ at the time all that was the rage. It seems to me, though, that Evangelicals went in much more for then anti-RPG stuff than Catholics did, though I am quite sure that you can find some Catholics who are overly concerned with "demonic influences" that would diss the whole concept.

2.  If someone did come to you and say that you shouldn’t be playing (or blogging about) RPGs, how would you structure your counter argument?

My defense of blogging about them would be completely different than a defense I would mount concerning playing them. Blogging is simply another form of talking or commenting, and there are no topics on which it is intrinsically taboo to even comment. The question is what is the quality of the contents: Do they accurately reflect the nature of the thing commented about? Do they have a tendency to steer folks toward a correct or an incorrect appraisal of the thing commented upon.

As to the subject of playing RPGs, the instinct to play is built into human nature. God means us to do it. He also built us so that we enjoy stories and coming up with imaginative, fantastic scenarios. All of these are in principle healthy and can play an ennobling role in human life and culture (as in, e.g., The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Given the God-given impulses to play and imagination, there is no in principle barrier to Role-Playing Games.

If a person wants to attack Role-Playing Games, then, he’s going to need to come up with a reason that focuses on the evils of an individual RPG rather than RPGs as a group. Presumably, that argument would be directed to the content of a particular game.

In this regard, the game merely having fantasy content would not be enough. If the content of The Lord of the Rings were the same, it would make no difference whether people experience it by reading it, watching it on screen, or playing it as a game. Merely the fantasy content of the work is not enough to make it illicit.

On the other hand, one might mount an argument that the content of a particular game is sufficiently morally problematic that it should not be indulged in. This argument may succeed in many particular cases. The way many D&D worlds are run, the characters regularly engage in immoral behavior in a way that has a deleterious moral effect on their players. (As the game designer Steve Jackson has pointed out, The average party of player-characters, incidentally, considers itself to be lawful good and is actually chaotic neutral.)

There are many individual  games that I would not participate in due to moral repugnance, and so I concede the potential force of the argument, but I note that it applies only to particular games  and not to the concept of Role-Playing Games as a whole.

Who can morally participate in what games will depend on the nature of the game and the dispositions and  moral fortitude of the player. Different people have different temptations, and one ought to stay out of games that foster one’s temptations.

One also might make an argument (as some back during the anti-RPG days did) that RPGs encourage obsessive behavior on the part of players. I would challenge this and say that young males (the majority of RPG players) tend to have obsessive behavior whether they are playing RPGs or not. While it is true that one can devote so much time to this hobby that it competes with other things one ought to be doing (e.g., meeting girls), that is true of any hobby and thus constitutes no objection to RPGs in particular. RPGs have no particular hyponotizing power that is lacked by girls or movies or TV or the Internet or girls or comic books or iPods or girls or popular music or cars or girls or hunting or fishing or girls or duelling or moonshine or girls or any of the countless other things young men have obsessed about in the present or the past.

3.  Do you have any related thoughts about the same subject, applied to books and movies (Harry Potter, etc)?

Bwahhh! You have just asked a question too broad to be answered in blog format. In principle, all of these forms of entertainment are fine of a mature person who is secure in his Catholic faith and not subject to usual temptations. The mere presence of fantasy content does not disqualify them. However, the moral content is important, and not all works are suited for all sudiences, particularly when children are involved.

MORE HERE.

Terri Was Murdered

Apparently in regard to remarks I made on Catholic Answers Live, a reader writes:

I was deeply saddened to hear you adopt the terminology of the radical fundamentalists in the very tragic case of Terry Schiavo and refer to those who adopted a different position in this matter as murderers.

You apparently did not hear me correctly. I did not say that those who "adopt a different position in this matter" are murderers. I said that those who killed her committed an act whose moral character was murder.

This is in keeping with John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where he writes:

[L]aws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law. It might be objected that such is not the case in euthanasia, when it is requested with full awareness by the person involved. But any State which made such a request [i.e., to be killed] legitimate and authorized it to be carried out would be legalizing a case of suicide-murder, contrary to the fundamental principles of absolute respect for life and of the protection of every innocent life [EV 72].

The reader continues:

There are very sincere people on the other side of this case who believe that Mrs. Schiavo would not want to have lived in a vegatative state for 15 years.

True, but the sincerity of people regarding their belief in what Terri may or may not have wanted has absolute nothing to do with whether the moral character of the act was murder. People might sincerely believe that innocent Person X wishes to be killed, but even if that is true, it does absolutely nothing whatsoever to change the fact that innocent Person X is murdered if killed, as the pope indicated in Evangelium Vitae

Nearly two dozen court judgements, including independent doctors (not those hired by the family) and the guardian ad litem assigned to this case, all agreed that Mrs. Schiavo’s condition would not change, that her cerebral cortex was "jello."

This passes credibility. Nobody has two dozen court judgments (which are not the same things as testimony by doctors) saying that Terri’s cerebral cortex was "jello." If you’re going to argue this point, please do not make clearly false, over-the-top claims.

Further, the problem has been that after the initial finding of fact courts have not been revisiting the merits of the case in a generalized fashion and thus multiplying number of court rulings does absolutely nothing to broaden the scope of the medical evidence regarding Terri’s condition.

Further, it appears that only one independently-appointed doctor actually examined Terri.

Finally, despite the clearly false claim that Terri’s cerebral cortex was "jello" (look at videos of the woman and listen to recordings of her!) it makes absolutely no difference whether her condition would "change" (for the positive) in the future. The reason is that you simply cannot kill someone in Terri’s condition.

Whether you agree with that position or not, how can you honestly lump those who held the view that Mrs. Schiavo would not want to live in this state, in the same catorgory as someone who willfully murders?

I didn’t. As noted previously, you apparently misheard me. I said that the moral character of the act of taking Terri’s life was murder.

There is a difference, sir, and I think you know that difference.

I do, sir, and that’s why I didn’t say it. There is cearly a difference between the act of believing that Terri would not want to live in this condition and the act of deliberately taking the life of an innocent person. Indeed, a person could genuinely believe that Terri would not want to live in the condition she was in and say, "Despite Terri’s wishes, we cannot deliberately and voluntarily kill an innocent person." The question of what Terri may or may not have wanted is a matter of historical fact (and one that has been dramatically spun in the media; Michael "suddenly" remembering after 7 years that Terri wouldn’t want to live in this state passes credibility), but the question of whether one can deliberately and voluntarily kill an innocent person is a moral question. The two are incommensurate.

In regard to the latter, John Paul II writes in Evangelium Vitae:

[B]y the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral [EV 57].

The reader continues:

Comments like these [i.e., that people who disagree are murderers] only add fuel to the fire and seek only to further polarize the sides in this very heart wrenching dispute.

I am not very much moved by lamentations regarding how "polarized" a situation has become when it involves a matter of fundamental moral principle. It is, of course, a bad thing when a situation involving moral principle becomes polarized, though the reason is not the polarization itself; the reason is that some people aren’t adhering to the correct moral principle.

I also have no sympathy for the proposition that we ought to compromise on moral principle for purposes of avoiding a "polarized" situation.

However, I can agree that individuals on the other side of this issue should not be called murderers, which is why I did not call them that. To do that would be to needlessly inflame the situation, and thus I confined myself to appraising the moral character of the act in line with the writings of John Paul II.

Have you read the guardian ad litem’s report? You can read it online.

Thank you, though you didn’t include a link to it. It is not going to have any bearing, though, on the question of whether one can deliberately and voluntarily starve an innocent person in order to cause the person to die.

Did you know that the parents, in court testimony, stated that if Terri’s limbs would have incurred gangrene that they supported amputation?

This has no bearing on whether you can deliberately and voluntarily starve an innocent person to death.

That if her heart failed, that they supported open-heart surgery?

Ditto.

That even if Terri had expressed a decision to die, they would still fight to keep her alive?

Ditto.

These are well-meaning parents whose love for their daughter, in my opinion, had reached a level of a selfish love.

It seems to me that they were simply clear on the principle that one cannot deliberately and voluntarily starve an innocent person to death. There’s nothing selfish about that. That’s simply a determination not to commit murder.

I am a Catholic. I believe removing the feeding tube was wrong.

In light of your previous remarks, these come as surprising revelations, particularly the latter.

However, I do not believe in calling people in this case murderers when I don’t know their hearts.

Ah. It again seems that you misheard me. I did not call people murderers. I said that the moral character of the act that they performed was one of murder. This means that, objectively speaking, what was done was murder–i.e., the deliberate and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.

This makes absolutely no determination regarding the hearts of others. For all I know, Michael Schiavo and Darth Greer and the whole gang of folks who participated in this murder may be such twisted individuals that they have absolutely no personal culpability for their actions in this matter, but that does not change the objective character of the act they performed.

I also don’t believe death is the worst thing in the world and that Terri is in a far better place today.

You are correct that death is not the worst thing in the world. It is, for example, better to die than to commit murder. As to whether Terri is in a far better place today, this may be the case and I certainly hope that it is the case. It is not, however, a thing on which we can be certain as we do not know with certainty the state of her soul. For one who was just a sentence previously advocating not presuming the state of others’ hearts, you should recognize that the same applies to Terri.

We should still pray for her.

This Week's Second Show (March 31, 2005)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Three-way discussion of Terri’s death with Fr. Frank Pavone.
  • Does CCC 2278 allow people to starve people like Terri to death?
  • Will the pope rebound again healthwise?
  • What does the Church say about organ donation?
  • What is the purpose of a glass bowl with a gold cross on top that caller saw at Mass?
  • Who wrote Hebrews?
  • Will all folks be Catholic at the Chastisement or the end of the world?
  • How to talk with mother who thinks Terri should have been starved and who wants to be starved herself in similar situation?
  • What about priests who are saying that Catholic tradition allows one to discontinue treatment?
  • How to respond to the idea that Baptists can trace their lineage back to the time of Christ?
  • Can a priest ever marry two non-Catholics?

This Week’s Second Show (March 31, 2005)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Three-way discussion of Terri’s death with Fr. Frank Pavone.
  • Does CCC 2278 allow people to starve people like Terri to death?
  • Will the pope rebound again healthwise?
  • What does the Church say about organ donation?
  • What is the purpose of a glass bowl with a gold cross on top that caller saw at Mass?
  • Who wrote Hebrews?
  • Will all folks be Catholic at the Chastisement or the end of the world?
  • How to talk with mother who thinks Terri should have been starved and who wants to be starved herself in similar situation?
  • What about priests who are saying that Catholic tradition allows one to discontinue treatment?
  • How to respond to the idea that Baptists can trace their lineage back to the time of Christ?
  • Can a priest ever marry two non-Catholics?