Goodness, School and Bullshit!

One of my favorite television shows has to be Penn and Teller's Bullshit! on showtime. Currently they are in their seventh season, as of right now it has been shot and shortly I will be able to watch it. For those who have never watched the show before, it is a skeptic show (featuring the magicians Penn and Teller) trying to get rid of all the false greegrees that we have. They have done shows on a multitude of topics, and of course one of their topics has tried to debunk the Bible using the Bible. Their Bible show was of the the interesting ones; doing the obvious topics of the Creation story, Noah's ark, and the Easter story. However, there person that they got to apologetics was not worth their salt. Also just announced for in their new season, there will be the topic of the Vatican.
This is more to be informative than anything else, and I will find the passages (Both in the Bible and in the Catechism) later this week.
However, this blog entry is about goodness and not a free advertisement for the show. I agree with most of the things that P&T say across the board. Since I feel that they are trying to do good. We might have different religious stances, but that does not we are required to disagree on subjects like capital punishment and being green.

According to the Catechism: being good is defined by goodness of the object (1755). The goodness of the object is defined by the intention of the act to be good.
Today’s story is going to be what I think what some one thinks what good, however their intent is not good. Today's walk back to my car from class, there where people trying to hang Nancy Pelosi on the nearest tree. They had signs saying she is a bad person, the bailout money is useless, ect. All in all they were trying to “educate” me on what they think is the right thing to do. When the person tried to get my attention by saying, “Hi! Do you know what we are up to?” I just humbly responded “I can make a bet that I could.”
The reason I said that is because I have made the mistake of talking to these people before. Last time I was agreeing that baby rape is bad, that CEO’s that are taking bailout money should use some digression. However, I did not take anything from them or signed my life away; and when they asked me to sign I just walked away, only to have the person that to run towards me and be a leech on me until I took their handbill.
During our “conversation” I said, “If you want to change this situation do the following: write our leaders, vote for people that can handle the job and maybe run for office ourselves if we do not like the outcome.” I was shot down and told I that I was an idiot in an instance after saying that.

Good is not a feeling. A guide that I use is the “feel good meter.” The question that I asked to myself is “Do I feel good because this is making me feel good?” Just like every single feeling that we have works on the variable output. Just because feel good does not show that I have done good. When P&T does the products shows (like sleep, reflexology, alternative medicine, hair and gyms) the want to reveal to us that they measure the product by asking how someone feels at that time. The conclusions to these show come down to that people use hard sale tactics to get ahead. So far my question it has not failed me yet, since it keeps me humble.
I know I have done good is that I can recall that thing I did, and smile since I know that it was truly good.

There is one more cannon in this section of good, which is #1756.
“It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.”

I really like this one since tells us that there is always stuff that is bad regardless of the situation. But there is some acts that need some context to justify its goodness. The last sentence for me seems right and wrong to me at the same time. It seems right since it makes sense, but given the right context I could ask this question. "Can there be evil that creates good?" Maybe I need to reread the section for it to sink into my mind.

-Giles

My top five episodes of Bullshit! are (in no order) :

1: Profanity
2: College (It is about the political correctness on college campuses.)
3: The Death Penalty
4. Nukes, Hybrids and Lesbians
5. Being Green