The 'truth' can't be based solely on faith
Teri Metcalf (Eagle, Aug. 30) supported Barrack Obama's reluctance to say human life begins at conception. She points out that Aristotle and many Catholic Church intellectuals such as St. Thomas Aquinas have shown a similar reluctance.
Marcel LeJeune (Eagle, Sept. 7) accuses Metcalf of being ignorant of history and theology. He claims Catholic teaching "has remained unchanged and remains unchangeable." This is, of course, nonsense. Catholic thinking and teaching has evolved through the centuries. Modern church teachings differ from those of 50 years ago, to say nothing of those of the Dark Ages, Middle Ages and the Inquisition.
LeJeune says St. Augustine taught that a male fetus was vivified at 30 days and a female at 90 days after conception. Aristotle said this in the third century, as did St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, but St. Augustine never said any such thing. LeJeune has his saints mixed up, which is easy to do for people who are only casual readers of history.
And there will never be, as LeJuene states, "truth of church teaching" as long as that "truth" is based only on faith, and not on proven history or science.
CAROL BIGGS
College Station
Facing a stark choice in November's election
We are facing a stark choice this November. We are in more financial, social and climate trouble than at any time in our history. But President Bush and Vice President Cheney, worried about their legacy, can't admit it. So they're leaving it to us to dig out of the hole they made.
Let's get started by changing our leadership. Who are we, anyway? America isn't a country that sends hard-working people to empty food pantries to feed their kids. America doesn't turn its back on those without health care. America doesn't use the labor of people who clean our toilets at minimum wage, then treat them like outcasts. Or insult other countries around the world and then beckon when we need their troops. Or pretend that people have nothing to do with climate change. Or send businesses a green light to grab what they want and leave the rest of us to clean up the -- mortgage -- mess. Or lie about supporting funds for a bridge to nowhere because later on it seemed smarter to oppose it.
Let's get started by changing our leadership. Who are we, anyway? America isn't a country that sends hard-working people to empty food pantries to feed their kids. America doesn't turn its back on those without health care. America doesn't use the labor of people who clean our toilets at minimum wage, then treat them like outcasts. Or insult other countries around the world and then beckon when we need their troops. Or pretend that people have nothing to do with climate change. Or send businesses a green light to grab what they want and leave the rest of us to clean up the -- mortgage -- mess. Or lie about supporting funds for a bridge to nowhere because later on it seemed smarter to oppose it.
For eight years, the Bush-Cheney White House has been given a green light to try out its Big Ideas Experiment. That blew in like Katrina and brought us down like New Orleans. Mission accomplished.
We are better than Bush-Cheney-McCain-Palin. Obama and Biden don't claim to be perfect, but their bridge will take us somewhere we need to go.
KATE KELLY
College Station
Clear and specific plan to reform Washington
Vladimir Lenin said that any cook should be able to run a country. U.S. Vice President John Nance Garner said that the vice presidency isn't worth a warm bucket of spit. Both were wrong, as the past seven years have clearly demonstrated.
For the past seven years, we've had a president with few talents and no intellectual curiosity and a vice president completely obsessed with promoting an imperial America, regardless of cost. The result has been both the most incompetent and the most corrupt administration in American history and a disaster for the country.
Who we elect president matters, and so does the vice presidential choice. John McCain claims he'll put the good of the country before political considerations but his choice for vice president makes a mockery of that claim. Surely, no one believes that Sarah Palin is the best possible person McCain could have chosen.
In his vice-presidential choice and in his flip-flops on almost every issue, John McCain has shown himself to be just another pandering politician. As president he would give us four more years of failed Bush-Cheney policies.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden, on the other hand, have a clear and specific plan for reforming Washington and getting the country back on the right track. They'll get my vote.
BOB PRESLEY
College Station
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