The Dark Side of Dolphins

Atheistic environmentalism seems to perpetuate the view that nature is perfect just the way it is. It acts as a kind of secular “dogma”. With this as a base premise, we can see the logic that concludes the following…any unnatural interference or manipulation of nature for the benefit of man is a deprivation of nature’s perfection, and a good definition of evil is just that—a deprivation of perfection. Therefore, defending anything in nature against man is intrinsically “good” and promoting man’s industrialization and expansion is intrinsically “evil”.

From a Catholic perspective, we live in a fallen world. The harmony and order of creation has become disordered because of Original Sin. I have always felt that evils like natural disasters, disease and even some of the brutality of animals are the result of Original Sin. Paragraph 400 in the Catechism says “Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject ‘to its bondage to decay’” Scripture also gives us a hint, “…that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;” (Rom 8:21-22). In the Catholic view, the evil found in nature mirrors the evil in the human heart.1

Another atheistic, and perhaps environmentalist “dogma” is that people are merely smart animals. Observed differences between people and animals are only a matter of “spectrum”, meaning that any human behavior can be found in the animal kingdom, albeit from a lower end of the evolutionary scale. I have yet to hear a good Darwinistic reason as to why humans wear cloths (even in the hottest climates), appreciate the arts, and have a longing to worship something greater than themselves, but I digress.

With humans fundamentally the same as animals as a base premise, we can see the logic that concludes the following…any basic right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness granted to people should apply to animals too (intelligent animals at the very least). Also, if we truly want to learn more about ourselves and understand what it means to be fully human, why bother studying philosophy, theology or Church teaching? We must study animals; especially intelligent animals that have never been corrupted by things like "religion".

Consider dolphins. We all know how cute, smart and playful dolphins are. Maybe we’ve seen or heard of shows like “Flipper” and movies like “Dolphin Tale” or the kind of endearing antics dolphins do at SeaWorld and other marine animal shows. Dolphins are undeniably and absolutely wonderful, are they not? I thought this too until I saw a documentary about the dark side of dolphins. Aside from some violent attacks on humans, I was quite surprised to learn that male dolphins have a kind of “rape culture”.

Here is a clip (consider it PG-13):

These highly evolved and intelligent mammals will sexually assault not only adult females, but under aged males and females as well. There also seems to be a lot of kidnapping going on. Groups of males will work together to keep a harem of females captive. The video called them “sex pirates”!! They also showed a team of two males trapping one female for themselves. They take turns guarding and raping the female while the other hunts for food.

What does this have to do with us? Thinking means connecting things and what we think leads to what we do. If nature is perfect just as it is, and animals are part of nature, and humans are merely smart animals, how can we present ethics in any coherent way? Can dolphins be immoral? Do dolphins have rights? If yes, could we not argue for a moral obligation to protect the innocent animals and punish or rehabilitate the guilty ones? If intelligent animals have no moral culpability, how do we separate the dark side of dolphins from the dark side of humans…and what makes it “dark” to begin with? After all, boys will be boys.

Remember that defining our idea of “right” vs. “wrong” depends on the beliefs we hold, and since we all believe things we can’t prove, it’s essential to drill down to the base premises for those beliefs to clarify exactly what they mean and where they come from. We seem to be forgetting that ideas have consequences.

1. Fr. Greg Shaffer, CW Catholic Q&A [Website], “Natural disasters - from God or because of us?” (15 October 2010), Site address: http://gwcatholicforum.blogspot.com/2010/10/natural-disasters-from-god-or-because.html

Darkness As a Kind of Light

There is certainly no shortage of evil so far in 2015. Why does God allow it? Seems no explanation can suffice at times. It’s certainly better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, but should we be cursing the darkness in the first place? I wonder. Like any mystery, darkness can be invitation to the mind.

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that good signifies “perfect being” and evil signifies “the privation of perfect being”, so when someone acts with a lack of love, or a thing lacks something it ought to have, we perceive the deficiency as evil. For example, blindness is evil for a human because a human ought to have sight. Blindness or darkness relates to evil as vision or light relates to good. No allegory is perfect, but darkness as an allegory for evil is eerily close because no one can really give or bring evil, just as no one can give or bring darkness, one can only take away light.

Darkness is what leads us to seek light provided that we have the right disposition; it can open our hearts and make answers possible for us; it leads to knowledge. Since the mind is made for Truth, it tends to move in that direction if there is nothing to stop it, and darkness need not stop it, but nudge it forward instead. Darkness becomes a kind of light whenever it helps us to see.

We need a certain comfort level with darkness if we are to be led properly. If we insist on peering ahead on our path, calculating each step and determining our own goal, we forsake the guiding hand of God that will take us beyond our expectations.

I once happened upon a labyrinth while out for a stroll at a retreat center. If you don’t know, a labyrinth is a pathway which leads, via a winding route, to the center of an intricate design and back out again. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has only a single path so it is impossible to get lost. The walls or edges keep you on the path. Once you reach the center, you have gone half the distance – you now turn around and walk back out.

Although the origins of labyrinth are pagan, I found it both thought-provoking and challenging to accept some “unknowing” and stay in the moment of each step, trusting that the path would guide me to the goal (the center) and back out again. My instinct was to peer ahead to see where the path was taking me, to calculate how much further I needed to go or how long it might take.

Without at least some acceptance of darkness we’ll try and shake free of that guidance that is trying to lead us to union with God and perhaps travel down a false spiritual path that becomes a mere figment of our imagination.

Once a soul basks in the light of God’s presence (beatific vision), he or she may come to know that the death of a person may have been a rescue of some greater evil had they lived. A painful romantic breakup may have been salvation from an unhappy marriage. The loss of wealth may have meant saving your soul from eternal loss. If you were blind and suddenly got your sight back, even the ugliest things would be appreciated.

“I will lead the blind on a way they do not know; by paths they do not know I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them, and make crooked ways straight. These are my promises: I made them, I will not forsake them” (Is 42:16)

Dark Wonder

The word “wonder” seems to have a positive or joyful connotation. A baby discovers his or her hands or feet for the first time and is delighted to find out that he or she can control them (to some extent) and waves them about joyfully.  An older child may experience wonder watching Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz open the farm house door to see the colorful land of Oz for the first time, while the baby that just discovered hands & feet may see the same thing and be filled with wonder just because Dorothy was able to open the door.

Adults will express wonder at other things like the innocence of a child, the beauty of nature, the good deeds of others or just the miracle of living. We are but dust that can be blown away at any instant, and yet we are here and conscious of our very existence! This kind of wonder seems to be one of those uniquely human traits not seen in animals to any extent (sort of like religion). At least I don’t know of any evidence that shows an animal has looked up to the stars, observed the behavior of some other animal, or pondered its own existence and wondered “how?” or “why?”

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE:

When my oldest daughter was four she was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz, watching it over and over. One day I told her I had to go to Kansas for work and she asked me a sincere and serious question. The question was, “Will there be color?” (Kansas is always in black & white in the movie). I stood in wonder of her perfectly objective question.

There is another kind of wonder however, that might be call “dark wonder”. How is it that one can fly a plane full of innocent people into a building full of innocent people on an otherwise beautiful September morning? How is it that a person could walk into a school in Newtown CT around Christmas time in 2012 and randomly shoot children? How is it that a tornado can fall out of the sky in Washington, IL one Sunday afternoon in November of 2013 and carry people off to their death? What awaits us in 2014? We may wonder with a dark wonder.

Whatever we wonder about, we should take heart that wonder leads us to “seek”, opens our hearts and makes an answer possible for us; wonder leads to knowledge. Since the mind is made for infinite truth, it tends to move in that direction if there is nothing to stop it, so it is possible for any dark wonder you may have experienced in 2013 to become a wonder of light. Darkness always becomes a kind of light whenever it helps you to see.

Once a soul basks in the light of God’s presence (beatific vision), he or she may come to know that the death of a person may have been a rescue of some great evil had they lived. A painful romantic breakup may have been salvation from an unhappy marriage. The loss of wealth may have meant saving your soul from eternal loss. If you were blind and then you got your sight back, even the ugliest things would be appreciated.

Catholics may wonder how, after all the graces we receive from God in the Eucharist, reconciliation and other sacraments, not to mention all the actual graces from everyday blessings, can we still be so faulty and faltering? When we feel depressed by our faults and the faults of others, let us marvel at the Saints who were all just sinners that never gave up trying to be better. Let us be filled with wonder and praise that our God can forgive us so much.  

The following reflection is certainly appropriate for the wonder of the Epiphany and the New Year ahead of us.

Star of Wonder

“O Emmanuel, may the assurance of your unfailing presence be for me the source of unending peace. May I never fear my weakness, my inadequacy, or my imperfection.  Rather, as I gaze with faith, hope and love upon your incarnate littleness, may I love my own littleness, for God is with us. Endow my life with a holy wonder that leads me ever more deeply into the Mystery of the Redemption and the meaning of my vocation and destiny.” – Fr. Peter John Cameron

Getting to Know Evil...Again

Thought I’d republish this from last July given what happened in CT yesterday in case it might help someone. I have a daughter in kindergarten myself. Seems like she was born yesterday and I could not imaging making funeral arrangements now. Another thing I find troubling is the fact that many who mourn the loss of these children today would have gladly supported their killing six years ago…when they were in their mother’s womb.

 

Epicurus
341 - 270 BCE

Many are familiar with what the Greek philosopher Epicurus said centuries ago:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”




We wonder how a God that is all knowing, all powerful and all loving can permit evil. We conclude that there must be at least some error, weakness or indifference about God. A flawed assumption with this kind of thinking is that finite humans can fully understand perfect knowledge, perfect power and perfect love. Think of a child receiving a flu shot. Should the child conclude that the parents either do not know shots are painful, they do not have the power to stop it or they just don’t care? This is NOT meant to compare a shooting to a flu shot. It is meant to compare the perspective of a child to our prospective to God.

St. Augustine of Hippo
354 - 430

Like us, St. Augustine had similar questions about evil before his conversion to Catholicism. He practiced Manichaeism in his younger days, which taught that there were two forces in the universe of equal power, one good and one evil. This would mean that God cannot be all powerful since there was a matching power of evil to counteract Him. Being the intellectual that he was, Augustine knew about Catholicism. He knew that Catholics taught God was all good and all things came from God. He had a question for Catholics, which we can read about in his Confessions, Book 7. The question was “From whence came evil?” If God is all good and all things come from God, where did evil come from? How could evil come into being at all?


It’s simple logic, but once again we have a bad assumption. The assumption is that evil has “being”.Catholics taught and still teach (because Truth does not change) that evil has no substance or “being”. Think of physical darkness; it has no “being”.Darkness is merely the absence of light. It doesn’t come from anywhere or find its source in anything; it is merely the lack of something. By the way, the Devil is NOT the source of evil, just like night time is NOT the source of darkness.

I'm finding this post disturbing.

After his conversion, Augustine equated evil to “disharmony”. I play some guitar and I’ve owned my current guitar for over twenty years. I can hear when it is even slightly out-of-tune, even if one string has the slightest disharmony with the other five. It may sound perfectly fine to you, but I know it can sound better. In a sense, I know my guitar’s perfection within the context of its nature. When all six strings are way out-of-tune, the guitar is gravely out of harmony with how it should be, and playing any chord would make an “evil” sound to anyone’s ears. It’s been said that without evil there would be no such thing as good. That is akin to saying without an out-of-tune guitar there would be no such thing as an in-tune guitar.

Thomas Aquinas tells us that good signifies “perfect being” and evil signifies “the privation of perfect being”, so when a thing lacks a perfection it ought to have, we perceive the deficiency as an evil. Blindness is evil for a human because a human ought to have sight. Blindness is not evil for a stone because a stone should not have sight. Also, think of a tree seedling trying to grow into as perfect of a tree as it can within its nature. Things preventing this like insects, disease, bad weather, animals or a man with an axe are evil to the tree, in the sense that they bring deficiency to it.

How does any of this help anyone? Does it take away the pain and confusion when a loved one is suddenly and senselessly taken from us? So what if evil has no “being”? So what if we understand evil better? We can still ask, “Why does God allow the privation of goodness to happen?”

One thing I’ve learned from years of dealing with complex problems in my professional and personal life is this….The more you understand a problem, the better you can deal with it, EVEN IF you can’t necessarily solve it. And so it is with the problem of evil.

The Evil of Two Lessers

You're the Diet Coke of evil.
Just one calorie, not evil enough.

Some speak of voting for “the lesser of two evils” in the upcoming presidential election and that voting this way only brings more evil.  A more accurate phrase may be “the evil of two lessers” IF we understand the reality of evil.

Thomas Aquinas tells us that good signifies “perfect being” and evil signifies “the privation of perfect being”, so when a thing lacks a perfection it ought to have, we perceive the deficiency as evil (see his Compendium of Theology). 



Another important point is that evil has no substance, nature or being. We may say for example, Satan is evil, but the word "evil" is an adjective. Satan is not evil itself in the way that God is Goodness itself. Think of darkness; it is merely the absence of light. Darkness doesn’t come from anywhere or find its source in anything; it is merely the lack of something. No one can bring more darkness or take away darkness; one can only take away light, bring light or stop light from dimming. Once we understand all this, we can see that any candidate is a “lesser” in the sense that everyone is imperfect and the imperfection can be called evil. So we are really talking about the imperfection of two candidates or “the evil of two lessers”.

Really?
Whatever....

Think of monetary debt as an election issue. Candidate “A” has a plan that will grow the debt by 20% per year. Candidate “B” has a plan that will grow the debt by 10% per year. Let’s say debt or negative dollars = evil and positive dollars = good. No one really brings negative dollars. I can’t hand you a negative dollar bill. Both plans result in more debt, but "B" is better. Going back to our light metaphor, Candidate “B” will slow the dimming of light better, or bring more light to help compensate or some combination of both. The result is more light (more dollars) than "A".

 

We can easily relate this to the topic of abortion or the killing of human beings. Suppose Adolf Hitler died before the fall of Nazi Germany and there was an election for a successor. Candidate “A” wants to keep the killing of all Jews legal. Candidate “B” wants only the killing of Jews who are a product of rape/incest or any Jew unintentionally threatening the life of a German. Both are imperfect because both will allow killing, but Candidate “B” brings more good , moving closer to perfection like lighting one candle brings more light in the darkness.  Is choosing NOT to vote at all in this scenario a sin of omission, because “B” could possibly save many lives? Just a question.

Of course, there is always a third party or a write-in candidate. This option reminds me of the contemplative side of Catholicism. A big part of contemplation is to be in the present moment because that is where we find God. The past is gone and the future does not exist; there is ONLY now. In the present moment there is no time to build-up a more perfect (or less evil) third candidate that can win. In our moment in the voting booth, we can only try to bring more good (more light) based on the candidates we have.

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

 

Getting to Know Evil

I’ve been meaning to do an evil post, meaning a post about evil, not a post that is objectively evil. Regrettably, it took the horrific shootings in Colorado last week to spur me on. Studying Augustine and Aquinas helped me to understand evil better, so I thought I’d pass along some concepts that are rarely talked about, even in Catholic circles.

Epicurus
341 - 270 BCE

Many are familiar with what the Greek philosopher Epicurus said centuries ago:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”



We wonder how a God that is all knowing, all powerful and all loving can permit evil, like what happened in CO. We conclude that there must be at least some error, weakness or indifference about God. A flawed assumption with this kind of thinking is that finite humans can fully understand perfect knowledge, perfect power and perfect love. Think of a child receiving a flu shot. Should the child conclude that the parents either do not know shots are painful, they do not have the power to stop it or they just don’t care?

St. Augustine of Hippo
354 - 430

Like us, St. Augustine had similar questions about evil before his conversion to Catholicism. He practiced Manichaeism in his younger days, which taught that there were two forces in the universe of equal power, one good and one evil. This would mean that God cannot be all powerful since there was a matching power of evil to counteract Him. Being the intellectual that he was, Augustine knew about Catholicism. He knew that Catholics taught God was all good and all things came from God. He had a question for Catholics, which we can read about in his Confessions, Book 7. The question was “From whence came evil?” If God is all good and all things come from God, where did evil come from? How could evil come into being at all?


It’s simple logic, but once again we have a bad assumption. The assumption is that evil has “being”. Catholics taught and still teach (because Truth does not change) that evil has no substance or “being”. Think of physical darkness; it has no “being”. Darkness is merely the absence of light. It doesn’t come from anywhere or find its source in anything; it is merely the lack of something. By the way, the Devil is NOT the source of evil, just like night time is NOT the source of darkness.

I'm finding this post disturbing.

After his conversion, Augustine equated evil to “disharmony”. I play some guitar and I’ve owned my current guitar for over twenty years. I can hear when it is even slightly out-of-tune, even if one string has the slightest disharmony with the other five. It may sound perfectly fine to you, but I know it can sound better. In a sense, I know my guitar’s perfection within the context of its nature. When all six strings are way out-of-tune, the guitar is gravely out of harmony with how it should be, and playing any chord would make an “evil” sound to anyone’s ears. It’s been said that without evil there would be no such thing as good. That is akin to saying without an out-of-tune guitar there would be no such thing as an in-tune guitar.

Thomas Aquinas tells us that good signifies “perfect being” and evil signifies “the privation of perfect being”, so when a thing lacks a perfection it ought to have, we perceive the deficiency as an evil. Blindness is evil for a human because a human ought to have sight. Blindness is not evil for a stone because a stone should not have sight. Also, think of a tree seedling trying to grow into as perfect of a tree as it can within its nature. Things preventing this like insects, disease, bad weather, animals or a man with an axe are evil to the tree, in the sense that they bring deficiency to it.

How does any of this help anyone? Does it take away the pain and confusion when a loved one is suddenly and senselessly taken from us? So what if evil has no “being”? So what if we understand evil better?  We can still ask, “Why does God allow the privation of goodness to happen?”

One thing I’ve learned from years of dealing with complex problems in my professional and personal life is this….The more you understand a problem, the better you can deal with it, EVEN IF you can’t necessarily solve it. And so it is with the problem of evil.

Professor Ratzinger on "Hell"

WARNING: This post is “dark”, but darkness can be a kind of light if it helps you to see.

Below deals with the article of faith “He descended into hell” (Good Friday/Holy Saturday), being without God and the pain in the verse “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” It’s probably the best description of hell I’ve ever heard, not that I’ve heard many speak of it in detail.

Summarizing several pages from Joseph Ratzinger’s book Introduction to Christianity, in Part II, The Development of Faith in Christ in the Christological Articles of the Creed:

Loneliness is a region of fear, which is rooted in the exposure of a being that must exist, but is pushed out into a situation with which it is impossible for him to deal. In the experience of utter loneliness, a fear arises peculiar to man which is not fear of anything particular, but simply fear in itself. Man cannot overcome this kind of fear by way of reason.

Ø  Example 1:

A child walking alone in the dark woods is frightened even if convincingly shown that there is nothing to be afraid of. The child will lose this fear the moment there is a loving hand to take him and he experiences the fellowship of “Another”.

Ø  Example 2:

Someone keeping watch over a corpse will feel somehow “eerie” even when he knows perfectly well the dead body can do him no harm. In fact, there would be more possibility of danger if the person was alive, but logic is of no help. This fear will also recede like the child’s if he experiences the loving nearness of a “You”.

Man cannot stand alone; he needs closeness; he needs unity.  If man (and this is the true nature of sin) refuses to recognize his own limits and tries to “be like God”, standing alone on his own two feet, then precisely by adopting this attitude he delivers himself up to death. Scripture about the connection between sin and death is to be understood from this angle. Small wonder the devil wants us prideful. Pride naturally leads to isolation from God (and others), which will lead to a torment of anxiety. It’s the exact opposite of the life of the Trinity.

If a state of isolation were to arise that was so deep that no “You” could reach into it anymore, then we should have a total and terrifying loneliness; this is what theology calls “Hell”….. a loneliness which is as inescapable as it is dreadful!

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?