Is it OK for a motorist to simply buy environmental absolution? The concept is certainly in keeping with traditional Western philosophy: you sin, you pay. Even a lousy student of history knows that powerful organizations have been creating, reinforcing and exploiting that equation for their own selfish ends for the last ten thousand years or so. (The Catholic Church's history of selling "penance reduction" for cash springs to mind.) And if you take the idea of paying for your sins to its logical conclusion, you end up in that kinky "I was a crack 'ho before I was born again" [applause] place, where you start believing that you gotta really sin before you can really repent. Don't you feel guilty driving that Lincoln Navigator? Hell no. I'm saving a rain forest! Call me a Rhode Islander, but I distrust anyone who brokers that kind of crazy ass deal, never mind the deal itself. Literally. Never mind it. The truth of it is, any car owner who thinks that they can buy "forgiveness" for polluting the planet (if they believe that they are) is simply trying to avoid the totality of their personal responsibility.
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I don’t know what Rasputin would drive, but he wouldn’t drive anything with iDrive, COMAND or MMI. He’d have to have a car he had total control over.
“We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.”
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Is it OK for a motorist to simply buy environmental absolution?
Some people think so; Al Gore has ties to a company that sells carbon offsets.
The Catholic Church’s history of selling “Get Out of Hell ” cards for cash springs to mind.
I’m not Catholic, but there is a common misconception about what indulgences are.
There were instances around the time of the Reformation where some clergy (Johann Tetzel, for one) were “selling salvation”; of course, it has happened at other times, but that is the most famous example. The people doing so were punished, to the extent of the Church law.
The official Church doctrine is that an indulgence is “a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven” (Catholic Encyclopedia). An indulgence does not forgive the sin, it only reduces the temporal punishment (Hail Marys, for instance). It’s like a judge reducing a jail sentence in return for community service or fines, but the crime is still on your record.
The heaven or hell decision is still up to God.
TexasAg03 :
I defer to your superior knowledge of those dark days in the Catholic Church (as opposed to…).
I’ve amended the text to read “penance reduction.”
TexasAg03 :
I defer to your superior knowledge of those dark days in the Catholic Church (as opposed to…).
It’s not that I have “superior knowledge”. I happened to have read a discussion on the topic a few years ago and I looked it up today to confirm.
I’m also not saying that there haven’t been “dark days” in the Church (including now). Anytime humans are involved, there will be the possibility of corruption. Just because the humans in the Church are sometimes wrong or immoral doesn’t make the Church’s teachings wrong or represent the true doctrine.
It’s like our government. Just because there are corrupt people within the government doesn’t make the Constitution wrong nor does it reflect what the Constitution “teaches”, so to speak.
Hell, I know plenty of Southern Baptists who drink and dance, and that’s usually a no-no in their church teachings.
I’ve amended the text to read “penance reduction.”
The Pope should adopt that as the new term for indulgences; it’s less vague.
EDIT: By the way, the Catholic Church did reenforce the indulgence problem:
The Council of Trent instituted severe reforms in the practice of granting indulgences, and, because of prior abuses, “in 1567 Pope Pius V canceled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions” (Catholic Encyclopedia).
The truth of it is, any car owner who thinks that they can buy “forgiveness” for polluting the planet (if they believe that they are) is simply trying to avoid the totality of their personal responsibility.
I agree, but others will retort that at least, they’re doing better than their neighbors who not only are driving Navigators, but not even buying carbon offsets at all.
As soon as the coin in the coffer rings
Out of purgatory the soul springs
I think Raskolnikov may have been a better literary reference. He’s the one that struggled with his deeds for about 500 pages.
Indeed I did. Well, I need to go sharpen my axe…..
xoxoxox Rodya
Some friend of my parents long ago (like in the 50s or 60s) named their car Raskolnikov.
Robert,
Don’t forget that while enjoying that fantastic stereo system in the RL you are ensconced in arguably one of the safest cars on the road today:
http://www.forbes.com/2007/05/11/car-safe-vehicle-forbeslife-cx_dl_0514safecars.html
David Holzman
Some friend of my parents long ago (like in the 50s or 60s) named their car Raskolnikov.
Oh, man… that’s just a crime! I sure hope they got some kind of punishment for it.