How can I convince them?

[peters_student]

I recently was asked in my speech and debate, to design a school. I did so, and I had a full classical and  catholic curriculum. I was told that it was illegal to teach such things in school, or to promote them. I told the teacher, who claims to be a Catholic, that this is how I would envision the ideal school. He told me I must look at it from every side of the situation, and that I couldn't teach Christian Literature, because it would offend people. I mentioned the Canterbury Tales [Which I find to be offensive to Catholicism] and the mentions of monks and nuns, and he shut up, but he did say that you're never truly a scholar until you see it from all angles. He emphasized this to the entire class. I found it to be rather annoying.  The next day he asked us to debate contrary to our opinion. It wasn't a serious debate, but today we are debating abortion and I am going to be forced to represent pro-choice. Usually I can appreciate an opposing side and tolerate it, but on certain issues I'm not even going to give them the benifit of the doubt. It infuriates me!

Is there any way that I can  tell him, that accepting others beliefs and agreeing with them is a denial of the truth the Church possesses?

I am so confused, I hate secular schooling. It needs to be shot. Pardon the expression.

[catholicresistence]

Catholic school need to teach Catholicism. Muslims teach Islam in their schools.

 

If one is offended, let them go somewhere else. Tell him Christ preached and made no apologies. He was not touchy-feely.

 

Sadly, many so-called Catholic schools today are as bad, if not worse then secular schools. I generally would advise to find a good Catholic school and go to it. Forget the secular-often times Godless- schools.

 

I think it as Bishop Sheen that stated if you want your kids to hold the Faith, send them to secular schools and make them fight for their Faith, as opposed to having it subverted and taken away in "Catholic" schools.

 

Hold fast to the Faith and plow your row.

[AGtoTrad]

 There are some things that you will have to refuse. To do the counter debate, i.e., 'find the 'good' in abortion can't happen. I will give you an example of my life experience.

 

As a 4th year medical student we had an OB/GYN rotation and this rotation does include abortion, all elective. I refused to participate, even participate in any of the clinicals as a religious and moral, and cultural reason. I was censured. Got an "F" (there is Pass or Fail). Here I was at the end of my med school and to have a Fail was nearly disasterous due to the residency selection in a few months. The administration got involved and I still would not budge. I was given yet another censure. Now I have two, and three expells you. I was considered a renegade, an outcast and truly made fun of. I could not in any conscious way support abortion. What occurred was that they gave up. I was pariah the rest of my term in OB/GYN. I did not return to the OB/GYN rotation to get an "P". I didn't care. The end was that the residency program that I wanted and was matched to the 'head honcho' agreed with my stance (it was part of my school record, permanent) and that was one of the reasons they accepted me. "You have morals,  black and white, and you are willing to fight for what you believe than follow status quo".  

 

You will have to take a massive deep breath sweetheart. And say "No". "I will not do a counter debate on abortion" Offer to counter debate anything else if your teacher attempts to shame you into doing it, tell him that "Is this how you believe you can create well rounded individual minds? By attempting to force me to go against all I personally believe to satisify you?"

 

 

[Sophia]

You will have to take a massive deep breath sweetheart. And say "No". "I will not do a counter debate on abortion" Offer to counter debate anything else if your teacher attempts to shame you into doing it, tell him that "Is this how you believe you can create well rounded individual minds?

 

Hm...I think I disagree.

 

Is there any way that I can tell him, that accepting others beliefs and agreeing with them is a denial of the truth the Church possesses?

 

 It isn't like they are ordering you to accept that abortion is okay or that it is okay for others to believe it.  In order to become good at debate, you do have to be able to argue both sides of an issue and anticipate the counter arguments.  This is just part of learning the art of debate.  This ultimately hones your thinking and speaking skills so that you can argue for the right things at the right times.  Although one of the tactics of modernists is to get you to look at both sides of an issue so that you no longer think there is any right or wrong and to teach you a perverted sense of "tolerance" and "compassion," debate has always been taught this way, and is a necessary exercise for discovering the truth of any given matter.  Even though your teacher may be trying to get you and your classmates to "be accepting of all sides," simply debating things isn't going to do that.  A philosopher has to wrestle with both sides in his mind in order to come to the truth, so debaters do the same thing.  With a debate, however, you have two or more minds working together to come to the truth, so more facets of a thing are going to be looked at. 

 

 

I can understand your repugnance to being on the "wrong" side of the debate, and especially with abortion since it is such an abomination. (School debates should not be on such heated topics, and I think it is an error in judgement to hold a debate on abortion) And I understand that the modern establishment has the wrong notion that truth is some third thing that is arrived at through a dialectic synthesis of two opposing sides, and that your teacher may want you all to decide that everything is in grey areas rather than black and white.   But I don't think it would be against morals for you to debate the pro-abort side. After all, it would force someone else to look at the Pro-Life side, and it would also teach you to be a better apologist for the Pro-Life side in the end for some future date.  Although you would be on the "wrong" side, this debate might just plant a seed in someone's mind for the truth.  At the kind of school that you go to, you have to choose your battles carefully.  My advice would be to go ahead and debate the side your teachers tell you to.

[Paul]

But I don't think it would be  against morals for you to debate the pro-abort side. After all, it  would force someone else to look at the Pro-Life side, and it would  also teach you to be a better apologist for the Pro-Life side in the  end for some future date. Although you would be on the "wrong" side,  this debate might just plant a seed in someone's mind for the truth. At  the kind of school that you go to, you have to choose your battles  carefully. My advice would be to go ahead and debate the side your  teachers tell you to.

 

 

  He might also manage to convince someone that the pro-abortion side is  right. While one has to examine the other side's arguments in order to  refute them, there's a difference between this sort of mental exercise,  or with someone who agrees with you playing devil's advocate, and being  required to support a cause which sends souls to hell. And while the  modernists disagree, we already know the truth on this issue because  the Church tells us abortion is always wrong. There's no need to seek  the truth through debate - the "marketplace of ideas" and free speech  is not Church teaching. I wouldn't dismiss it as just a school  exercise, either. Just as Catholic schools are supposed to teach one  how to be a good Catholic, government schools teach us how to be (their  version of) good citizens, that is, good modernists who are tolerant of  everything. And isn't defending evil on the list of things which are  also sins? I'd refuse to debate on the pro-abortion side.
 

 

[peters_student]

Catholic school need to teach Catholicism. Muslims teach Islam in their schools.

 

Um... I think you maybe confused, though my teacher claims to be Catholic, I actually attend a secular school. I do not like it for one moment, but my family is not Catholic, my mother would never pay for Catholic schooling and I have little choice in course study. I would like to mention, that I hold fast to the faith and plow through, but I want to enter a seminary and I can't afford to fail. They expect a scholastic record, and I want it to be good. I will openly refuse to take such sides of the debate, whether it strengthens skills or not, but what I wish I could do is come up with a concrete reason that involves logic, not Catholicism to make him understand why I would not take part. I have been working on an essay that explains why we cannot possibly be open-minded on certain subjects without denying that we possess the truth. The answer to a question can't be opposing views, or one would be incorrect. I don't care to play the devil's advocate, which or teacher often claims to be. I was told that closed-mindedness, on such subjects, will isolate me and in the long run affect my vocation. I didn't understand how approving heresy affected ones moral obligation, maybe I'm incapable of that mental process.

 

I thank you for your advice, but I am between a rock and a hard place. Both in school and church. It is so difficult to be a traditional catholic, especially when so many of my peers who claim to be Catholic tell me that I am wrong on every point. It makes people wonder if I'm just a charlatan, creating my own religion.

 

Yet, I believe there is still hope, I hope to become a priest, and whatever that may take I will accomplish it. I am going an Ignatian retreat this summer to the SSPX Retreat House in Conn. And I have given up quite a lot for lent, the computer should be one of them, but I need Fisheater's. Well if you can help anymore than you already have, please do. I appreciate it.

[BibleCatholicJMJ]

I feel different ways about it I guess.  I think the best way to shoot down an argument is know how to defend it.  If you know all of it's position you can know how to systematically put down each point.  I think this is something to know how to do on a personal level.  Should we do it in a public setting where we might convince another person of something we don't want to convince them of?  Possibly, and a reason not to do it.  I remember the early Greek philosophers being so good at defending something they didn't believe in, knowing both sides of an issue, and this is a quality to have I would think.  But I don't know if it would be appropriate in a setting where you aren't able to re-defend(if this makes any sense) your real position.  IOW, be able to show how your defense of the other side, doesn't par with your real position.  Okay I'll stop confusing you now...

[CampeadorShin]

Point out that a scholar can't really be one if they look at it from "all" angles.  With TRUE Christianity, there is only ONE angle.  Also, tell the teacher that being "open" is actually being open to error!  Look at the 60's!

Feel free to throw some questions at me thru pm.

[AGtoTrad]

 

 

"Is there any way that I can tell him, that accepting others beliefs and agreeing with them is a denial of the truth the Church possesses? "

 

 

Yes you can.

 

Pius IX and many other prelates and noted theologians recognize the fact that there are different religions in this world, yet this does not mean we have to accept them. In fact, the secular state is to discourage their assembly by not giving them special mention or place in public events. Again, Blessed Pius IX explains this quite nicely to American bishops circa 1870.

 

Agreeing with other faiths is a denial of the true Roman Catholic faith. It is true that other Christian religions have a portion of the truth, yet for them to accept the whole truth is a direct directive from Christ Himself: "He who is not we Me, scatters." The "Me" is this statement of Our Lord's applies to not only what He said in the Gospel passage's, but also through what was handed down by way of Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church and Christ are one in the same. (See also Paul's conversion: "Paul, why dost thou persecute Me?")

 

Appreciating other opinions is a good thing, but is limited to such things that can be called "morally neutral events and occurrences". An example of a morally neutral event would be; "who's a better quarterback" and such. Appreciating others opinions develops patience and fortitude in the listener. However, to listen to and accept opinions contrary to known moral truths the Catholic Church teaches opens the door to indifferentism; which leads to Atheism, which leads to rejecting God altogether. In this day and age the emphasis is on "acceptance" of morally deplorable actions such as abortion and homosexuality which are a subjective evil where the actual participation in these actions, or to directly give council to another person to take part in them, are an objective evil. All that is needed for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing. Recall the rich man and what he did to poor Lazarus? Nothing! The rich man did nothing, and he went to Hell because he failed to do good. The lesson to be learned here is this: There are objective and subjective evils in this world, and the rewards for them are the same.  

 

Your instructor, whether knowingly or unknowingly, promotes indifferentism. Indifferentism regards that one's own self is the final arbiter in a moral issue. Doing so denies Christ His authority and social Kingship over souls and the way they live in peaceful coexistence through the governance of the state. Making one's self the final judge as to what is good or not good results is so many different interpretations of what is right or wrong actually is. By necessary consequence, what is good is eventually obscured and forgotten. It also suggests that the truth changes from individual to individual and is not immutable. The humanist's hoped-for-result of being your own judge is that "an individual has freedom" however the opposite occurs and chaos reigns supreme. Soon we live in a dog-eat-dog world where only the strongest among men survives, and charity is crushed out of existence ! We need moral laws that every individual should follow on their own, but is also backed up by the authority of the state and done so by force if necessary. For the state to abdicate this authority to impose these laws leads to a social collapse such as what happened to the old Roman Empire. (It rotted from the inside, out.) Abortion is a moral law that requires individuals to recognize it for the wrong that it truly is, and the state is required to uphold this moral law with the force of its authority.

 

Laws are (supposed to be) based on the "discovery of the truth" and when this is abandoned the infrastructure; the very pith and stalk of peace and harmony can't long survive, and the eye of the intellect  can no longer see what is right and morally good, because the light of reason has been darkened. We are no better than brute beasts. "All men are created equal" ...is a true statement because it is based on the fact that each man has the light of reason to illuminate the intellect of his own soul. This is light necessary to lead us to making the right choices which, in turn, leads us to our common, objective end: God !  

 

Your instructor promotes indifferentism which is based on his "faith" that an individual is capable of  making a good choice for himself. His own definition is the outline of a "religion"...which is illegal for him to teach. Your instructor is a dangerous man because what he "suggests" are the those subtile things that tend to lead pliable minds into the making of choices which lead to many and dangerous errors. He commits the sin of commission by suggesting and promoting an error. It is worse for him because his position among students is one of esteem and respect.   

 

The villain who twirls his mustache is easily recognized, but those who cloth themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged.

[gladius_veritatis]

Usually I can appreciate an opposing side and tolerate it, but on certain issues I'm not even going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Is there any way that I can tell him, that accepting others beliefs and agreeing with them is a denial of the truth the Church possesses? 

 

If you know something to be true, even in the natural order, then to affirm, or even bothering to pretend to affirm the opposite is nonsense (except for the purposes of refutation).

 

For example, 2+2=4.   Can you even pretend for a moment that it equals 5, or blue, or anything else?   No, you cannot, and it is an exercise in foolishness to try.  The same goes for any other truth in the natural order, and a fortiori for divinely revealed truth.  Sure, some of them need some degree of demonstration, but if you know an idea to be false, especially if it can be proven so with relative ease, there is no sense playing around and "considering" the other side, except to refute it (that is for pseudo-intellectuals, not scholars).   Abortion is against the natural law, and there is no pro-choice "argument".

 

We know the Faith is true more certainly than we know 2+2=4, or that abortion is evil, so if something contradicts it, there is no possible discussion on the matter.  Roma locuta, causa finita.

 

If Almighty God has revealed it, to "accept" the opposite (or even to consider doing so) is absurd, for He IS Truth.