Culture of Life

As Pope John Paul II theorized on the "Culture of Life" in relation to Church teachings, the popular media completely ignored his pastoral thesis and focused on the "Culture of Death", here is what he said...

"...we are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable 'culture of death.'"

He elaborates:

"This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. ...a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected..."

Concluding that:

"...a kind of 'conspiracy against life is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to a point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States."

What is very recognizable to me is his description of "sin" as a cultural unit of measure and indicating it has a structure. This structure does not have a name but he describes it as a specific activity -  "it denies solidarity".

Focusing on the "Culture of Death" immediately eliminated identifying any "activities" necessary to overcome "denying solidarity" in all our lives. Establishing a "Culture of Life" quickly ran into political issues and agreement with how this could be done. However, I do agree with the critics who say:

"...critics, who argue that religious conservatives do not have a monopoly on valuing life, or that they devalue it themselves, or that by emphasizing quantity of life they devalue quality of life."

Pope John Paul's original observation of a "Denial of Solidarity" however seems very valid in the current political context. Even more so than a "Culture of Death" focused on abortion, euthanasia, and other socially occurring manifestations.

"Denial of Solidarity" sounds related to Pope John Paul's personal involvement in Poland's Solidarity Movement (1980-1989). This was a pro-democracy movement made up of workers, intellectuals, students, peasants, the Catholic Church, and major professional groups targeting the communist regime.

Searching for reference to "Denial of Solidarity" was fruitless except for the law book entitled, Solidarity, by K. Bayertz, Springer Science & Business Media, Feb 28, 1999 - Law - 350 pages.

There are many legal books referencing this particular phrase and combination of words but as I dug deeper another type of reference began to appear. Health books and papers referencing human dignity as a taxonomy subject.

"Solidarity is unity (as of a group or class) that produces or is based on universities of interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies. It refers to the ties in a society that bind people together as one. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences as well as in philosophy or in Catholic social teaching."

Solidarity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://tinyurl.com/njut9g8

Culture of life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://tinyurl.com/np3t9uf

Movements and Campaigns: http://tinyurl.com/ppz6eht

Solidarity - Google Books: http://tinyurl.com/mr2uxe7

The Holocene Impact Working Group

...is a group of six scientists who hypothesize that meteorite impacts on Earth are more common than current scientific consensus indicates.

http://goo.gl/kYhRIf

When Space Changed History

...Documentary

http://goo.gl/GtkYSu

Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?

...The universal human myth may be the first example of disaster reporting.

http://goo.gl/txrcsc

Burckle Crater

...Dating the Flood

http://goo.gl/bmz84N

The 9 Most Influential Works of Scientific Racism...

One of the more enduring symbols of Christianity is Bread and Wine. As sacrifices to God they go back to our origins in Genesis and continued to evolve throughout the entire biblical canon. Bread is a representation of the flesh while wine is a refection of the spirit. It is no mistake that wine is mixed with water - the spirit can be overpowering and intoxicating to  man. As a comparison, certain fundamental aspects of our mutual existence can also be overpowering.

Sacrifice seems to be a human reaction to the unknown with a physical element intended to influence the result. Early in the Old Testament sin was connected to the natural environment in a fundamental way. Men's actions were seen as influencing the environment that was governed by the unnamed God. Although there were two types of sacrifice handed down from Adams sons - cereal and animal - it was Melchizedek who focused on cereal sacrifice after the great flood. The animal sacrifice of Cane transitioned into human sacrifice that Abraham sought to overcome. This was done by a priestly sacrifice of a ram taking the place of his son. The concept of ritual sacrifice or the symbolic representation of an offering developed.

Lost in the stories and biblical symbolism is the idea that we can influence God and nature. The Old Testament struggles with sin as the central symbol that's at the root of the perceived hardships - natural disaster and human self oppression. The biblical references move from the examples of natural disasters and focus on human self oppression toward the end of the Old Testament. A notable example of this is the story of Job that bore a number if hardships not based on his personal sins but for God's glory alone. This was the cumulation of the sacrificial paradigm in the old testament, not a disconnect from the concept of sin causing natural disasters and social hardship but sin as a human commonality.

What Christianity did for the regional pagan concepts of sacrifice, having evolved into human sacrifice and oppressive patriarchal feuding, was to fulfill and bring full circle the oppressive social elements of a multicultural region and transformed them into democratic concepts. These concepts have always been opposed by leaders who consider the earth and its inhabitants as resources to be exploited but revered by those who have a fundamental respect for the earth and its multiracial inhabitants.

Although the fulfillment of these Old Testament beliefs found a regional history that expanded beyond  the New Testament and the European Renaissance, what lessons can be learned that would allow us to bring together our modern Paganism? Not the notion of classifying people into a system of believers and unbelievers or Christian and Atheist. Nor by judging people as fit for sacrifice based on their sexual preference or other actions that should not qualify for government funding. The modern Paganism that I'm referring to is the tribalism that underlies the entire spectrum of communication and spreads exponentially using the disruptive communication tools that have become a norm. Although our religious history seems to frustrate our most modern science and our religious beliefs contain little room for measuring minute results, our conversion must include a forgiveness that does not sacrifice each others most cherished Human gifts. Each other.

http://io9.com/the-9-most-influential-works-of-scientific-racism-rank-1575543279/+AnnaleeNewitz

Purgatory

Purgatory as a descriptive word for a broken  communication system...

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-sued-over-disappearing-imessage-texts-sent-to-android-users/

Aldous Huxley on Drugs, Democracy, and Religion

Might have to read the book. There is ONLY ONE TRUTH not many and I also enjoy the science tradition. However, they always oversimplify the theology which leads me to believe the evaluation is a general evaluation or based on a narrow fundamentalist view. Although science contains two of the three dynamics of Catholic tradition it is not a unified concept in the Reformed Tradition. Science and Engineering both historically serve the political structure while religion in the Reform Tradition is Protestant. The reformed churches are structured and exist as symbolic representations of the Israelite nationalistic communities at the time of Christ. Based solely on research of the various reformed writings and from a Catholic perspective, they exist totally separated and opposed to structured human knowledge systems that do not profess Christ as their savior.

The Messiah theology has been part of Jewish tradition from the beginning however there is a major difference in the perception and expectations of Messiah. Jewish apologetics on Christianity indicate that Christians would be yet another sect of Judaism except for the recognition of Christ as the promised Messiah. Despite the divergent path that believers in Christ followed, is there another more predominate element that would explain how the faith of the emerging nation transitioned into a world faith? There is an element of Judaism that it is so profound that scripture does not expanded on it and that is also contained in other ancient belief systems. In addition, can there be an inherent design to Judaism that has caused this large scale fragmentation of thought? Although biology has chosen to speak in a language that professes no belief in God does its perception also validate ancient beliefs that exist in our humanity? In the Jewish scriptural tradition the oneness of God is so profound that scripture writings never have a beginning. In terms of a modern writing style they never contain the first chapter because everything was one.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/25/aldous-huxley-moksha-drugs/

A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of Modern Democracy, on the American

Ran across this reference recently and thought I would share it. It has a lot of Catholic references but its a nice concise history. I like it JUST BECAUSE it does contain some of the ancient concepts. The non faith version would focus on astronomy. Recently realized there were two major competitive social dynamics in the same region: priest prophets and kings while the other was astronomers engineers and kings. Kinda leads me back to the Cain and Able story that has a Muslim tradition also. Able is known as the city builder...

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/politics/pg0010.html

King, David, In Synchrony with the Heavens, Studies in Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in Medieval Islamic Civilization

Based on this, the editors of The
Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (ERN) adopted a working definition of religion as “that dimension of human experience engaged with sacred norms, which are related to transformative forces and powers and which people consider to be dangerous and/or beneficent and/or meaningful
in some ultimate way” (x).

In his introduction Taylor further states that “for many, this meaningfulness and the sacred norms associated with it have much to do with nature” (x).

He acknowledges that nature itself is a problematic and contested term, but defines it as “that world which includes—but at the same time is perceived to be beyond—our human bodies, and which confronts us daily with its apparent otherness” (x).

These “minimalist definitions” (x), when combined into the term “nature religion”, become “any religiosity that considers nature to be sacred (extraordinarily powerful in both dangerous and beneficial ways) and worthy of reverent care” (x).

Muzaffar Iqbal
Book Review

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCgQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cis-ca.org%2Fjol%2Fvol4-no1%2Freviews.pdf&rct=j&q=King%2C%20David%2C%20In%20Synchrony%20with%20the%20Heavens%2C%20Studies%20in%20Astronomical%20%0D%0ATimekeeping%20and%20Instrumentation%20in%20Medieval%20Islamic%20Civilization&ei=YcI8U7bGM6jKsAS844GICw&usg=AFQjCNH4ZVOvMc3IOD0hIAIjHFv6ZNWxkA&bvm=bv.63934634,d.cWc