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Monday, 26 November 2007

The new manichaeism

This from the Daily Mail: Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly
Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.
The philosophy is made clear in Toni's words:
Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.
Her doctor would not allow her to be sterilised (more than one of these strangely counter-cultural doctors appear in the story) so her husband had a vasectomy. Then, when she was 23 they divorced.

At the age of 25, she fell pregnant ("disaster struck"). Toni continues the story:
I didn't like having a termination, but it would have been immoral to give birth to a child that I felt strongly would only be a burden to the world.
Finally, she was sterlisised and her future husband sent her a congratulations note.

Perhaps the saddest quote of all is:
She excelled at her Roman Catholic school
There is a further story of Sarah and Mark who says:
"Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don't have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly.

"We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food.

"In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.

"That's why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth.

"Sarah and I don't need children to feel complete. What makes us happy is knowing that we are doing our bit to save our precious planet."
This is indeed a new form of Manichaeism: humans in the flesh are evil and some higher good is to be preferred. In this case it is the "precious" planet and the ecosphere that takes pride of place - a sad step down from the early gnostics who at least aspired to some sort of higher spiritual state. We must pray that those who hold to this philosophy do not take the logical route followed by their forbears, the Cathars, and commit ritual suicide.

10 comments:

John said...

Is'nt this what the Albigensians did?
I see that she is divorced. I wonder if her marriage was in a Catholic Church!
Score:-
3 up for the current secular culture.
0 for Catholicism.

God help them.

JARay

Paul, south Midlands said...

Father Holloway pointed out many years ago that cultures that carry on like this are inevitably replaced by cultures that don't

IMHO she is a primae facie candiate for a Darwin Award

Ches said...

Is it too cynical to suggest she pack herself off to the Great Land Fill?

Fr Tim Finigan said...

Yes, that's too cynical.

Seriously - we need the Rosary.

Francis said...

Fr. Tim,

We can de-code the first lady's real message by editing out some of the verbiage and homing in on the key phrases:

"I didn't like having a termination...it [was] immoral... I [feel]...a burden..."

She needs our help and our prayers.

Ches said...

The Rosary it is then.

Anonymous said...

read and was shocked by the whole article when it appeared last week. Depressingly it mentioned that child killing Sarah was educated at a Catholic School and presumably therefore was baptised into the faith.

How anyone could hold such self evidently anti all human life view is beyond me. We must pray that as well as avoiding suicide they do not take to killing others in order to reduce “people pollution”!
invocante

George said...

A warning of what is to come I fear. The 'save-the-planet-stop-global-warming' propaganda is so fierce and becoming so ingrained in society that simple, susceptible, unquestioning minds fall for all this stuff with the result that even having a child is seen by them as 'immoral', while killing the baby in the womb is seen in some mind-bogglingly distorted way as the right thing to do. God help us.

When will these people come to their senses. When will they start to question the junk, one-sided pseudo-science, that is being churned out as some kind of religious dogma about global warming. Eco-priests like Al Gore should be horrified to hear stories like this one where because of their misguided (but well-paid $$$Zillions and celebrity status advancing) 'eco teaching', foolish 'green-housers' are killing their own children!

Non IPCC conforming Scientists (the normal ones) must do a whole shed load more to get the balanced point of view across. The media should stop being afraid of publishing and broadcasting un-PC material. Well done C4 some months back. More please.

I'm all in favour of challenging the many ways we misuse and waste resources and damage areas of our environment but say a BIG NO-WAY when others say that human activity is responsible for CO2 'green-house' gas increases, and global warming and yada yada yada. Increases of what???? - CO2 is no green-house gas, and an alleged 10%increase in the total of 0.035% CO2constituent of our atmosphere is, as an eminent non-IPCC Scientist put it, as significant as 'a fart in a hurricane'.

And yes - prayer is indeed our most powerful weapon.

David said...

Agreed, she needs our prayers.

What I never understand is how the environmental debate is always framed in terms of a zero-sum game. That is, one more person equals a necessary drain on the environment. Does this women not think that, just maybe, one of the millions of children that have been destroyed by abortion could have come up with a solution to the world's environmental problems.

David

Andrew said...

Reading the article.I was just about to suggest they go and do what the Cathars did...

But seriously, this kind of attitude is poison. It pollutes the mind and kills it and is far more dangerous than global warming. People like this apologize for being alive and would rather have the whole human race die out so that the planet can be 'saved'. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the planet and the true meaning of stewardship.

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