David, in part that depends on what you mean by “insight.” If you accept a simple dictionary definition, insight simply refers to an intuitive grasp of inner “workings” or “nature.” Revelation, in the modern colloquial sense, may refer to nothing more than this.  I’m reminded of the character from the movie, “Arthur,” who declared, while in a drunken sot, “I’ve had an epiphany.” meaning a particularly enlightening insight.

None of this presumes revelation in the religious sense, which refers to a communication from God, or, perhaps in your case, a communication from a higher plane of existence.

Incidentally, the reason I’ve made such a big deal about the distinction between free moral agency and the decision power of an automaton is precisely to get at the fact that human beings are not simply highly complex animals.

Hey^-^ My last post didn’t get posted, so in waiting around for it to happen, I guess I sort of missed a lot of discussion. I’ll just jump back in, then.

Jim^^ On the subject of your last post:
“it is well known that the overwhelming majority of those Priest pedophiles are gay.”
Huh^^ ‘well known’. Well, that convinces me, then^-^
Or not. What I -am- convinced of is what the definition of pedophilia is: “a sexual attraction to children”.
Children. Look in a reference book, and you’ll find that the gender of ‘child’ in question is almost always a moot point. Pedophiles may prefer boys to girls or vice versa, but most of them couldn’t care less.
Just thought I should clear that up^^

And now for Fr. Larry Gearhart^^ It’s been awhile.
I read a little more of the Bible in my absence^^ I’ve stopped at… just after Genesis 19:32. I’m sure you’re familiar with that passage and the ones directly after it? Where Lot’s daughters intoxicate him, then sleep with him? Hmm. Seems like the Church wouldn’t condone such behavior.
All that said, you put this towards us:
“the Church’s stand on homosexuality is neither ignorant nor means spirited.”
Heh^^ That’s adorable. But whether or not it’s mean-spirited or ignorant is a moot point: the point is, everything the church condones or doesn’t condone is decided by the same force everything today is: Majority opinion.
If a sect of the church decided to fully adhere to the bible today, the would be cast from the church, wouldn’t they? Because the bible itself condones a lot of things considered unacceptable today.
Anyways, if I’m wrong, call me on it. Give me an example of fully adhering to the bible that doesn’t require being cast from the Church as a whole.
(When I say the Church, I’m talking about whatever religious organization governs the Vatican.)

Regardless, have a nice day^^ Maybe after I finish stifling my vomit over Genesis 19:32, I’ll continue on reading some more of the ‘good book’.

TLDTS I was responding to David Page and the Priest pedophilia cases that occurred in Boston.  The use of “well known” comes from the fact that I hadn’t heard/read that any of the victims in Boston were girls.  The press seemed to cover a lot of details.  Then, it’s hard to know what you can trust that gets written in the papers huh?

Jim said: “TLDTS I was responding to David Page and the Priest pedophilia cases that occurred in Boston.  The use of “well known” comes from the fact that I hadn’t heard/read that any of the victims in Boston were girls.”

Jim, there were some girl victims. I don’t know if the lesser number was because of preference or availability. Of course, emotionally needy kids made the easiest victims and boys are probably easier for a priest to get near. The level of betrayal stuns me to this day. Many, many priests knew about it. The entire hierarchy of the Church knew. In a town in Southeastern Massachusetts one priest walked in on another priest who was molesting a child. He left the room and closed the door behind him. We know this because he begged forgiveness on his deathbed.

Fr. Gearhart said: “Incidentally, the reason I’ve made such a big deal about the distinction between free moral agency and the decision power of an automaton is precisely to get at the fact that human beings are not simply highly complex animals.”

I think I’ve shown that I believe each human consciousness to be on a higher plain than animal consciousness. I also believe that the record of the rocks shows that it was not always so.

When I say consciousness I mean my consciousness. I can’t talk about it in the abstract. When I try, it loses that which gives it immediacy. First there’s me and then there is the other. I can’t see them as separate, fully human beings, also both mortal and alone, until I see myself that way first. Descartes’ “Cogito, Ergo Sum”. I think, therefore I am. I’m sure you’ve heard the old Catholic joke about what some Existentialists would say: Cogito Cogito, Ergo Cogito Sum.

For me, everything is personal. If I had to explain my morality in three words, those three words would be it. Everything is personal. What I do to other people I do to me. Martin Buber, if I’m reading him right, put a similar idea into a religious context. I and Thou. Me and you. Me and God. For him God didn’t talk to congregations, He talked to people. It was personal.

That Lesbian Down The Street,

Genesis 19:32 revolts me, too.  Judeo-Christian tradition, and most other religious traditions, condemn it as incest.

Could you be more specific about “fully adhere to the bible?” I believe dialog proceeds more clearly if it deals with specifics.

One example of what I’m talking about is the difference pointed out in a previous post between the Church’s stand on capital punishment vs. God’s command to the Israelites to wipe out certain foreign tribes.  For example, Saul is ordered, through the prophet Samuel, to wipe out the forces and people of Amalek in 1 Samuel 15.  “This is what the LORD of hosts has to say: ‘I will punish what Amalek did to Israel when he barred his way as he was coming up from Egypt.’”

This is set against the analysis put forth in Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae.

Moreover, “legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the State”. Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason.

In any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person”.