Taking Responsibility

Dear Editor: I must admit to being dismayed that The Tablet would allow to stand, without response, double-think distortions of science and psychology made by a reader earlier this summer expressing his commitment to a brazenly anti-Catholic philosophy of materialism, from which he also denied the existence of willful evil. Despite the reader’s protests of a belief in God, one cannot rationally proclaim a belief in God and contradict obvious implications of God’s existence at the same time. We also cannot rationally believe in predetermination and freedom at the same time. Neither can we rationally insist on a metaphysical dualist and monist interpretation of the human mind at the same time.

While talking down to us, the reader made it clear that he possessed no knowledge at all of 2,000 years of Catholic refutations to materialist thought, suggesting that objections are based on a Gnostic contempt for the material world. Citing as an authority on how to properly appreciate religion and science, he favors the late Stephen Gould, who throughout his life insisted that religious conceptions of man may be a kind of mental illness and in his last years mocked Pope John Paul’s assertion that there is an “ontological uniqueness” between man and the rest of nature. We are simply the products of biology, Gould insisted, and therefore moral concepts based on religion or Natural Law must give way to “evolutionary ethics” and “sociobiology.” Almost verbatim what Hitler’s philosopher of social biology, Joseph Goebbels, promoted.

It is in the very nature of science and the scientific method that it cannot at all address or understand free agency. The chief problem with a materialism of the mind carried out its logical conclusion is that it ignores contrary evidence to its “we are just a pack of neurons” interpretation of existence. If our mental life is nothing but electrical impulses, then we cannot explain the realm of abstract concepts, including those of theoretical science. Nor can we explain the human mind’s openness to truth, the foundation of all thought, nor vain attempts to deny truth. Materialists cannot explain why anything should go right, even observations and deduction, why good logic should not be as misleading as bad logic, if they are both chance movements in the brain of a bewildered ape. Materialists exalt reason, but they cannot account for reason. Neither can materialism account for consciousness, free will, value judgments, and the existence of a unitary self. In a purely material world, such things cannot exist. Matter cannot be free or have a self. Neither can matter venerate the sacred or have remorse for personal failures. Matter cannot sacrifice or have compassion for the suffering.

But a conscious mind can fail the angels of its spiritual nature and invent ways to deny the meaning of compassion or dismiss the meaning of malice. It is lamentable that the reader chose to ignore findings and misinterpret experimental data in the field in which he promotes himself as an expert. The long history of treating science as a religion – completely glossing over what damaging effects to truth and research the personal vanities, ideological prejudices, and falsified findings that scientists often demonstrate – has contributed to the sort of simplistic and malicious judgments that treat the brain damaged as subhuman.

The reader reproduced the false claims related to a famous case of acute brain damage stating the condition transformed a genial personality to one of belligerence. The reality was closer to the exact opposite. The deceased do not deserve slander any more than the living. Regardless, it is wrong to claim that particular human qualities reside in particular areas of the cortex. Observations seeking to correlate changed functionality with particular episodes of brain damage are at best speculative. What is not speculative is research that shows adaptability and reorientation of the cerebral cortex after brain damage, undoubtedly because the neural activity correlated to consciousness is the reflection of the mind, not its cause. A soul has character, and life has an inherent dignity that materialists may try to deny, but God answers our weaknesses, contradictions, and delusional denials of personal evil by having given us His crucified son.

James Haraldson
Pinellas Park, Fla.

Editor’s Note: James Haraldson is Professor Emeritus of Microbiology at the University of South Florida.

Common Spiritual Grief

Dear Editor: I am deeply saddened to learn of the death a few weeks ago of Dr. Timothy Mitchell, the editor and publisher for many years of Pro Ecclesia magazine. Dr. Mitchell also was a professor of philosophy at Brooklyn’s St. Francis College.

Kindness, piety and great learning were Dr. Mitchell’s chief attributes. He was for many years a dear personal friend of mine. Much of my knowledge of Roman Catholicism was given to me, a non-Catholic (I am a religious Jew), by Dr. Mitchell in the long and wonderful conversations that we had.

May Tim Mitchell live forever in Paradise with all the saints of the Church, including our common spiritual ancestor, the Prophet Abraham!

Michael B. Bobrow
Manhattan

New Italian Center

Dear Editor: The Federation of Italian-Americans and the Brooklyn Columbus Parade Committee wish to extend our heartfelt thanks for the fantastic coverage The Tablet had on our Columbus Parade.

The exposure has allowed our organization to notify the community of our future Italian-American Cultural Center “Il Centro” that will be located at 18th Ave. and Benson Ave. The center will provide office space, basketball courts, library, ample space for social, recreational and/or group events and an indoor pool.

Once again thank you for publicizing our major Italian heritage event held every October.

Barbara Pascarella
Brooklyn

Bishop Makes a Good Point

Dear Editor: Thank you, thank you and once again thank you to Bishop DiMarzio for giving me a broader and more in-depth insight into the undocumented alien problem. I was hesitant about licensing (for driving), but I see the logic in his column (Oct. 13).

It is my hope, although I will not hold my breath, that one of the politicians will have the courage to take up this issue in the upcoming election. It is almost cruel the way our immigration laws are exercised. They certainly do not help either the illegal alien, nor do they assist our country’s labor market or more importantly our nation’s security. Please more articles to help educate us.

Virginia Marie Hoyns
Middle Village

The Party of Civil Rights

Dear Editor: In my lifetime, the only politically courageous decision I have seen taken by a political party was during the Kennedy/Johnson years when the Democrats embraced Civil Rights. It split the Democratic Party apart.

When Strom Thurmond walked out of the Democratic Party, he and his “Southern Strategy” were welcomed by the Republican Party, once the party of civil rights.

Today, the base of the Republican Party is Southern whites who give the party an electoral edge. However, I have never met a Democrat who regretted the party’s silence on Civil Rights.

Tim Driscoll
Brooklyn

Natural Family Planning

Dear Editor: Re: The featured article High Court Rejects N.Y. Appeal of Contraceptive Coverage.

For some at their time learning about Natural Family Planning “is a logical and practical lifestyle choice. The real challenge is winning people’s hearts. That is where conversion happens. Let’s pray and may our witness be the path to many conversions.”

Pray for your own marriage, for couples all over the world. Then pray for engaged couples. Pray for teaching couples.

M. Kelly
Brooklyn

Do Violence to Stop Violence?

Dear Editor: Poor Amnesty International! According to The Tablet (Sept. 22), Amnesty International has decided to allow violence to a woman’s womb and to her unborn child in order to stop violence against women.

Elizabeth Velazquez
Brooklyn

The Scourge of the Nation

Dear Editor: If not for abortion on demand, Social Security would not be losing hundreds of millions of dollars for the past 14 years. Because at least 20 million of the 41 million who were aborted would be working and contributing to the system! That’s the major reason Social Security is going broke.

Why isn’t that fact being addressed? Abortion is the scourge of this nation in more ways than one. And not one politician has the guts to say so.

Mary Anne Zoles
Bay Ridge

Editor’s Note: While we agree with the substance of the above letter, we should point out that Ms. Zoles’ own state senator, Martin Golden, is a marvelously pro-life, anti-abortion politician. So, there is at least one!