The Post That Keeps on Giving

Back on March 7, 2009 I wrote a post about Moral Dilemmas. I didn't even get one comment! Of course at that time I didn't have any followers either! Now I have a few faithful ones and I wanted to reshare it because a blogging buddy of mine, Sextant from Navigating the Finite ran across this ancient blog post and more than made up for the fact that it had no comments by leaving four of them! Four very long, very interesting, very fascinating comments that made me want to learn more. Sextant was so impressed with my post and his comments that he decided he would just steal his own comments back and do a whole blog post linking back to my original post and adding to his comments.

Many times I've left long comments on someones post and thought, wow, I could write a whole post just using my comment and the ideas this post inspired and then Sextant goes and beats me to it. Well done Sextant, well done!

So I'm going to copy and paste and re-run my whole post below, then please click this LINK to go to my original post and read Sextants fascinating comments and then click this LINK and go to the post Sextant wrote with inspiration from my post. Wow...are you all following this?  Anyway...I hope you find this all as interesting as I did and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to be inspired by me or by Sextant and write your own post about Moral Dilemmas or just leave your own super long comments or even short ones!

Original Post from March 7, 2009 - Moral Dilemmas

I was stumbling again today and I came across a Website called Some Moral Dilemmas. This websites gives a list of moral dilemmas from a book called Moral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian (Prentice Hall, 1981, 1992).

Reading this website brought back memories of an Ethics class I once took where I argued with a professor that ethics and morals have a religious background. If you don't know right from wrong because you were never taught as a child what God considered right or wrong than how can you know what is ethical or moral? This professor did not agree with my theory and brought up the question of atheists who don't believe in God, weren't taught right or wrong as decided by God. Did that mean atheists didn't know how to be ethical or moral? It made me think. But I think what I was trying to say is that for me, making ethical or moral decisions is based somewhat on WWJD - What would Jesus Do, even way before that saying became popular.

So in reading some of the moral dilemmas on the website I noticed that my decisions are based on my faith, my religious upbringing and WWJD. Read some of them and see what you think? For instance...here's a random one:

A Parent's Agonizing Choice

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

My immediate reaction is that God says Thou Shall Not Kill. He doesn't say Thou Shall Not Kill unless your children are in mortal danger. So morally and ethically according to my religious upbringing I answered that I would not do what the guard wanted me to do. Not because it was my son, but because it's not in my hands to take another person's life. Even if taking that life will save another.

But then I got to thinking further, that peace officers and soldiers and doctors make those decisions everyday. Sometimes you have to take the life of someone to save the life of someone else. Peace officers may have to shoot a bank robber who has taken hostages in order to save the lives of the hostages. Soldiers may have to take lives of innocent bystanders in order to save the lives of even more humans in the community. A doctor may have to terminate a pregnancy in order to save the mother.

It's interesting to contemplate all these different dilemmas and choices that can be made and why. For instance, this dilemma:

The Fat Man and the Impending Doom

A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. [But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite.] There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using [that] dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?

Since the fat man is said to be "leading" the group, he is responsible for their predicament and reasonably should volunteer to be blown up. The dilemma becomes more acute if we substitute a pregnant woman for the fat man. She would have been urged by the others to go first out of the cave.

What do you think? How would you vote?

Moral Dilemmas

I was stumbling again today and I came across a Website called Some Moral Dilemmas. This websites gives a list of moral dilemmas from a book called Moral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian (Prentice Hall, 1981, 1992).

Reading this website brought back memories of an Ethics class I once took where I argued with a professor that ethics and morals have a religious background. If you don't know right from wrong because you were never taught as a child what God considered right or wrong than how can you know what is ethical or moral? This professor did not agree with my theory and brought up the question of atheists who don't believe in God, weren't taught right or wrong as decided by God. Did that mean atheists didn't know how to be ethical or moral? It made me think. But I think what I was trying to say is that for me, making ethical or moral decisions is based somewhat on WWJD - What would Jesus Do, even way before that saying became popular.

So in reading some of the moral dilemmas on the website I noticed that my decisions are based on my faith, my religious upbringing and WWJD. Read some of them and see what you think? For instance...here's a random one:

A Parent's Agonizing Choice
You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

My immediate reaction is that God says Thou Shall Not Kill. He doesn't say Thou Shall Not Kill unless your children are in mortal danger. So morally and ethically according to my religious upbringing I answered that I would not do what the guard wanted me to do. Not because it was my son, but because it's not in my hands to take another person's life. Even if taking that life will save another.

But then I got to thinking further, that peace officers and soldiers and doctors make those decisions everyday. Sometimes you have to take the life of someone to save the life of someone else. Peace officers may have to shoot a bank robber who has taken hostages in order to save the lives of the hostages. Soldiers may have to take lives of innocent bystanders in order to save the lives of even more humans in the community. A doctor may have to terminate a pregnancy in order to save the mother.

It's interesting to contemplate all these different dilemmas and choices that can be made and why. For instance, this dilemma:

The Fat Man and the Impending Doom
A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. [But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite.] There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using [that] dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?
Since the fat man is said to be "leading" the group, he is responsible for their predicament and reasonably should volunteer to be blown up. The dilemma becomes more acute if we substitute a pregnant woman for the fat man. She would have been urged by the others to go first out of the cave.

What do you think? How would you vote?

Reflections from a Mother's Heart

In keeping with my resolution for the New Year, here's another entry from my journal, Reflections from a Mother's Heart.

What kind of prayer did you say before you went to sleep? Who taught you to pray?

I had a whole litany of prayers I used to say before I went to sleep at night and I prayed these same prayers well into adulthood and I can't remember when I stopped praying them, but I did.

It started with the Sign of the Cross, then the Our Father, then a Hail Mary, then I would pray, Jesus, Mary and Joseph pray for me. The I would pray for God to give me good dreams and if he didn't have any good dreams for me that night, then don't give me any dreams at all. Then I would go through the list of everyone I wanted to bless starting with God Bless my mom, my dad, my brothers and sister, etc. By the time I got through this whole litany, I was relaxed and ready to go to sleep and more often than not, I didn't get any bad dreams. This was kind of like my mantra.

As to who taught me to pray, mostly my mother and my mother's family. I remember many a rosary being prayed with my mom's family. And of course I went to Catechism like a good little Catholic girl and learned from the nuns and the teachers.

One thing that I regret not learning was how to really pray. Not just reciting memorized prayers that I could say in my head while I was thinking with the forward part of my brain what I was going to have for breakfast the next morning, but really praying and speaking with God. I did learn that later but it would have been nice to have someone teach me to pray like that as a child.

A few years ago, I was a teacher for 1st year Confirmation students and I tried to teach them to pray like that. I told them to just talk to God, it didn't mean that to pray to him they had to memorize all those prayers in their catechism. They could just talk to him throughout the day just maybe when they pass a test say, "Whew God, thank you, that was a close one", or "God thanks, mom makes the best burgers, wish you could taste them". I hope it stuck in some of their head because God knows the older we get, the more you need God and unfortunately that's when God tests you the most and you start to lose faith.

The aftermath, not of Ike but of Shariat

No, I'm not talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, I'm talking about Hurricane Shariat...Dr. Shariat to be precise! He really kicked my butt and left me reeling.

Ferocious Hurricane Shariat ripped off the old scars on my throat on Thursday, September 11th and scrambled to remove the right side of my thyroid. Shariat bore down on the right side after raging just a few weeks earlier on the left side and leaving a devastating scar. "This last assault was quite severe," said Alicia resident of the throat area devastated by Shariat. "There is a lot of pain and nausea. The throat and nerves and muscle in the surrounding area are being damaged and my energy level is coming down."

OK, so just a little exaggeration about my surgery using a current event, Hurricane Ike. The devastation Ike left is very serious, but then again so is the devastation of my 2nd surgery as witnessed by the two photos that follow. I warn you the photo's you are about to view may be extremely disturbing and viewer discretion is advise :-)

Not really. I mean they're not beautiful, but they're not THAT bad. Judge for yourself. If you're thinking when you view these photos that it looks painful...that's because it IS!

As bad as these photos look, this scar will not even be noticeable unless you are looking for it and know the person has had this type of surgery.

I'm not going to go into detail anymore about the surgery, recovery, etc. Suffice it to say that it wasn't fun and it's not anything I ever want to go through again, but other than maybe posting some pictures later of my healing I just want to get over it and go on with my life!

I've had a lot of support during all of this and I just want to say thank you to everyone that was there for me and with me during the surgery, my daughter April, my sister Lisa, my mom Tomasa, my dad Federico, my brother Fred, my brother-in-law Sean, my aunt & godmother Casimera, my brother Jaime, and my son Jim. I want to thank my many visitors, both in the hospital and at home, my sister-in-law Connie, my niece Sarena, my nieces Alicia and Beatriz and Melissa, my nephew Freddie, my sister-in-law Norma, my friend Angelica, and my nephew Isaac. Thanks also to my many relatives who prayed for me and put me on prayer lists in their church and sent cards and flowers. Special thanks to Tia Ninfa for the beautiful card and the oracion and photo of Nuestra Senora de la Salud.

A special thank you to my wonderful mommy who just drove up like clockwork to fix me breakfast and just take care of me. There are no words to describe how wonderful, loving and self-less my mother is. I love you mom!

Reflections from a Mother's Heart

When did you first go to church? What are you earliest memories of church?

I was raised a Roman Catholic, which I still am to this day. I'm sure I first went to church just a few weeks after birth. My mom has always been very devout. The church I attended from birth was the one my parents were married in and I was baptized made my 1st Holy Communion in, it was St Helen of the Cross Catholic Church in Eloy, Arizona. I remember most my 1st Comm because of the beautiful dress I wore and I remember feeling like a princess because all my aunts and uncles were in the church...just for me and I was a little princess.

Honestly I think the church needs to rethink the whole 1st Comm process because kids that age don't understand what they are doing. I certainly didn't. My whole reason for being there was to wear the pretty dress and feel special and have a party thrown in my honor. Taking the Body of Christ is a decision that should be made by an adult who has the proper understanding of what they are doing.

But getting off my soapbox now, the second part of this question is what are my earliest memories of church. I remember

• My mom, sister and I wearing matching dresses that my mom had sewn for us.
• Older girls sitting behind me smiling at me when I would turn around and look at them and feeling so flattered that these pretty, older girls would even notice me.
• The priest that taught us Catechism at a church in Harquahala, Arizona who played a recording for us that taught us about the birds and the bees (sex) and after gathering up my friends in the front seat of my mom's car and explaining sex to them now that I knew all about it.
• In high school, it seemed like the priest there could read my mind. All the things I had been thinking during that week and all the things I was thinking of doing the next week...especially the bad things; this priest would preach about it and really make me think of the things I was doing in my life.

The Catholic Church has always held a special place in my heart. I have always loved the church, but I haven't always agreed with it. I am now more or less a lapsed Catholic. I just find the Catholic church to be a bit cold towards all the things that are important to me in my life. But I still love the church and what it represents and all the beautiful symbols and celebrations of the church.

Reflections from a Mother's Heart

I decided Thursdays would be my day to take a question out of the journal "Reflections from a Mother's Heart. This week has been so hot that I haven't felt much like doing anything. Lisa and I did try to go play tennis last night, but people were using the tennis courts, so we had ice cream cones and played ping pong instead.

The question this week is:

Were you baptized or dedicated as an infant? If so, where and by whom.

I was baptized into the Catholic church as an infant. Of course I don't remember anything about it and I've never seen a picture, so I can only assume that 50 years ago, there were no cameras in our immediate family.

I do know that my mom and dad's first choice for godparents "padrinos" were Arturo and Casimera Soliz. I don't know the story about why they were not able to actually make it to the baptism itself. I know something happened and Arturo's parents, Adolfo and Carmen Soliz were at the ceremony by proxy. So I had 2 sets of padrinos.

I don't know who the priest was, but I know it was at St. Helens Catholic Church in Eloy, Arizona and I also made my first Holy Communion there.

When I got married, I chose Arturo and Casimera as my main padrinos, since they had already been my padrino's for baptism, which is usually the custom.

Today, only Casimera and Carmen are still living, the men having passed on. I see my Tia Casi a few times a year, but it's been years since I've seen my madrino Carmen and she's only a few miles away in a nursing home. Maybe this Saturday I'll ask my mom to go with me to visit her.