Shared values and social constructs.

As a non-Christian one thing keeps bringing me back to the arms of the Church. Charity, freedom and liberty- my whole value system. It is easy here in the west to enjoy these values as a non-Christian but how does this translate in foreign countries with different social values when it comes to philanthropy and foreign aid. Whether you are a Christian or not, if you are a westerner you have the same desire to help people. As our society becomes more secular the more powerless we are becoming at changing the conditions and circumstances of impoverished and oppressed people. Secular philanthropy has cessation of suffering as its goal where as christian charity has a deeper mission. One that aims at the heart of the individual and seeks to change the moral behavior(yes that is judgemental). That is why secularist make government their religion. And when their religion fails, as government will always do, they tend to make freedom and Christianity their enemy.
It is apparent to me now that these values are inseparable from the Church and cannot be effective in the hands of any other world view. My issues with the church are things like afterlife, hell and punishment. My skepticism with these have to do with social constructs rather than lasting values.

Letter from George Washington to the Roman Catholic Church

To the Roman Catholics in the United States. December, 1789.

While I now receive with much satisfaction your congratulations on my being called by a unanimous vote to the first station in my country, I cannot but duly notice your politeness in offering an apology for the unavoidable delay. As that delay has given you an opportunity of realizing, instead of anticipating, the benefits of the general government, you will do me the justice to believe that your testimony to the increase of the public prosperity enhances the pleasure which I should otherwise have experienced from your affectionate address.

I feel that my conduct in war and in peace has met with more general approbation, than could reasonably have been expected; and I find myself disposed to consider that fortunate circumstance, in a great degree, resulting from the able support and extraordinary candor of my fellow-citizens of all denominations.

The prospect of national prosperity now before us is truly animating, and ought to excite the exertions of all good men to establish and secure the happiness of their country, in the permanent duration of its freedom and independence. America, under the smiles of Divine Providence, the protection of a good government, the cultivation of manners; morals, and piety, can hardly fail of attaining an uncommon degree of eminence in literature, commerce, agriculture, improvements at home, and respectability abroad.
As mankind become more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those, who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume, that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part, which you took in the accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance, which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic religion is professed.

I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind concern for me. While my life and my health shall continue, in whatever situation I may be, it shall be my constant endeavor to justify the favorable sentiments you are pleased to express of my conduct. And may the members of your society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of Christianity, and still conducting themselves as the faithful subjects of our free government, enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity.

George Washington
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I found this on Mundus Tranquillare Hic (Bede)

“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”

-Pope John Paul II-

Breaking the curse.

I wrote in an earlier post that Noach was the first messianic figure in the bible but perhaps there was an earlier attempt to break the curse. In the story of Kayin(Cain) and Hevel(Able)we have the first two sons of Adam and their vocations. Kayin, who's name comes from the word kinyan meaning possession or aquisition(Chava said "I have aquired a man with God) becomes "a tiller of the ground". He is connected to the ground that is cursed and he is reliant on his own labor, his own mastery of the land for his harvest.
Hevel, who's name means vapor, breath or vanity, becomes a shepherd like the greatest figures in Israel's future(Moses, David, ?). His vocation was very dependent on God for reproduction and even feeding the sheep. "After a period of time"(miketz yamim,literally-end of days, a curious phrase) the brothers bring an offering(mincha) to God. But the son that is stuck in the curse becomes jealous of God's acceptance of his brother's offering and kills him. Hevel's blood cries out for vengeance. Was this an attempt by Hevel to break from the curse that his father had ushered into the world?
Was Kayin's offering rejected because he was content to live in the curse?

"The purpose in life is to keep on making new mistakes"

-Bruce Stabbert

When is taking a life murder and when is it a medical choice?

There is a lot of disturbing news lately of mothers(and fathers who are statistically slightly more likely to kill there children) killing there babies. Although this sounds appalling to most of us it seems to be a growing pattern.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics- Over 500 children are killed each year by a parent. The Las Vegas Sun in an article from 2003 entitled, Young children more likely to be killed by parents than others states that "FBI crime statistics show that in 1999 parents were responsible for 57 percent of murders of children under 5, with family friends or acquaintances accountable for another 30 percent and other family members accounting for 8 percent."
Could a good part of this be linked to the abortion culture? Last week when the Tampa FL. woman(link here) went to have an abortion the baby accidentally came out alive and then was killed and thrown out with the trash. The pro-choicer's claim they are appalled as well but I can't help but think they are more appalled over the fact that the mother happened to see it than they are at the death of the baby. Yesterday the mother, who threw here baby into Lake Pontchartrain in Metairie LA told police that "she didn't want the child and had contemplated an abortion, but her pregnancy was too far along, Caraway said. She hid the pregnancy from her grandmother, with whom she lived.
"She said she was not ready to raise a baby," Caraway said. "She said it was the result of a one-night stand and she did not want it.""
Its easy to convince a pundit that ending the life of a baby in the womb is medical choice but I don't think its translating very well into an ever increasing secular culture.

Rabbi Nachman

Prayer is the root of all attachment and devotion to God. Prayer is the gate through which we approach God, and through prayer we may come to know Him.

Likutey Moharan II, 84

Sometimes pain feels good.

Jesus an antitype of Lamech?

Taylor Marshall at Canterbury Tales http://cantuar.blogspot.com has an interesting post about Lamech and Jesus. He writes:

" In the Old Testament, the Bible's first polygamist, Lamech, calls down a protective curse of vengeance:

"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech!
For I have killed a man for wounding me,
Even a young man for hurting me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold" (Gen 4:19-24).
This pattern is corrected and reversed by Christ who said:

"Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." (Mt 18:21-22).
The Old Testament's other Lamech is also a man of sevens. According to Genesis 5:25-31 he was 182 years old at the birth of Noah, and lived for another 595 years, making him 777 years old when he died. "

to take it a step further Lamech names his son Noach(see earlier post) nun chet which is connected to rest or comfort for "this one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands, from the ground which Hashem had cursed." So Lamech introduces man to the idea of a Man who will save us from the original curse(sin) and give us comfort(Paraclete)and one who found favor(chet nun)(this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased) in the eyes of God.

there will be more to come from possible messianic occurrences in bereishit.