Satan's Razor

*In case you've never seen all of
Star Wars, read about Palpatine here.

     In regards to voting, Catholics are taught that there are some policies which we just cannot reconcile with the common good, and so we cannot in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports those policies.  The policy that probably comes to your mind first is abortion.  In general, the Democratic Party in the U.S. is supportive of legalized abortion.  The Republican Party, in general, opposes laws which permit abortion.  No matter what other policies these two parties support, abortion just cannot be ignored when it comes time to cast your ballot.  It seems that, as a Catholic who regards all fetuses as human individuals, the decision is a no-brainer:  The common good is drastically opposed to the Democratic Party simply by that one token.  Yet, there is a grave problem in concluding that, therefore, one must vote Republican.  This strikes me as utterly narrow-minded and reminds me of the Jedi Council rallying the clone army under Chancellor Palpatine.*  It’s a trap.

     There is a fallacy named the “false dichotomy” whose definition helps us to understand the conundrum of which I speak.  A false dichotomy is a presentation of two points of view as if they were the only options, whereas others are available.  For example, “If you’re not a conservative, you’re a liberal” is a false dichotomy.  This only begins to express the whole problem of choosing a Republican over a Democrat. 

Who would you vote for?
Sure Lex Luthor is a bad guy, but he's great compared to Galactus!

     By now, you might be thinking “he’s alluding to third party candidates, but he might as well just not vote.”  It is sad but true, that to vote for somebody who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat is probably to throw one’s ballot into a three percent margin.  It seems that third party voters might as well stay home on Election Day.  My point here, though, is not a pragmatic one.  It is a moral one.  Catholics are not Utilitarians by principle; the consequences of an action do not make it good.  In fact, the principle by which most conscientious voters operate is to “choose the lesser of two evils,” in which case many consequences of the action would still be bad, just not as bad as the alternative.  Cut your losses, so to speak.

     But less evil is still evil.  Also, voting for a third party who would very likely not succeed is not equivalent to staying home and refusing to vote.  That is, action is still action, regardless of your success.  Is it better to try for the best possible option and fail or to compromise and succeed in securing evil?  If you still do not see how Republicans could be so bad, compared to everything Democrats stand for, have you ever considered the accusations against Republicans made by Democrats?  Have you ever considered that they might be true, regardless of the source’s own problems?  You might be thinking, “Sure, the GOP has its problems, but they’re not nearly as messed up as the Liberals’.”  This may be true, but it leads me to my main point.

     Here, I will define a fallacy which is based on the false dichotomy.  It is called “Satan’s Razor” and it is the mechanism by which a false dichotomy is created between two evils so that one is made to look good in contrast to the other.  Consider, for example, Communist Russia vs. Nazi Germany, using condoms vs. spreading HIV, or Godzilla vs. King Kong.  It is an insidious and clever lie to say that, because one stance is so evil, you are morally obliged to support its opposite.  The “razor” trick is ubiquitous, driving arguments from education (either feed the system or go stupid) to environmentalism (either abuse nature or don’t touch it).  As soon as you decide to support one side against the other, you have fallen into the trap.

     The morally conscious person is thoughtful with his principles and careful in his decisions.  Evil is nothing more than a defect; a flaw in something otherwise good.  The world is not a duality, a struggle between good and evil.  It is altogether good yet defective.  Instead of trying to fix one defect by increasing another, step back and think about what is really good and choose that.  If your efforts at a solution fail, at least you know that you did not contribute to the problem.

Why Easter is So Great

What makes a superhero great?  There are super powers, strong character traits, and origin stories for most superheroes, but these are not really what determine how great a superhero is.  Super-villains have super powers, strong character traits, and origin stories as well, but they are villains.  In fact, the difference between hero and villain is usually quite dualistic in most stories as it seems to matter only whose side one is on.  The question, however, is about greatness.  Super-villains could be great, but they are never called that (unless “great” is used as another word for “cool”), and there is one reason for this:  They never win.  Only superheroes win and only superheroes are great.  Each superhero is roughly as great as his deeds and the enemy he is able to overcome.  Beowulf is a great hero because he slew two fiends and a dragon.  James Bond is a great hero because he outwitted several evil masterminds and saved the world (i.e. the world‘s status quo).  Superman is a great hero because he defeated incredibly powerful enemies and saved the world from annihilation.  Among these examples, considering their stories alone, Superman is clearly the greatest.  If Superman, with all his powers, was never able to defeat any of his enemies, he would not be so great at all.

Beowulf vs Grendel

Iron Man vs Dr. Doom
(Super-battles have gotten flashier, it seems, but the struggle remains the same)

Let us consider a real live person; Jesus Christ, the God-man.  Being the Word of God, He created the universe.  This is indeed a mighty feat, but creation involved no enemy and no resistance.  As the Word-made-flesh, resistance began before He was even born.  From Herod’s preemptive threat of infanticide to the everyday work of carpentry, Jesus met problem after problem.  Yet everything the world saw Him do was no different from what men did before him.  His miracles were certainly incredible and He amassed an impressive following, but then one very problematic thing happened.  He died.  How could the Son of God die?  Why would He die?

There are two ways of understanding the fall of man and his salvation.  The first way is that, when the very first man committed the first sin, he offended God who is supremely good.  This offense incurred a supreme penalty.  There was no way any man could ever make up for what he had done.  The penalty of sin is death and we went on dying, always paying for our sin without actually paying it off.  When God himself became a man, he was sinless and so did not have to pay the penalty.  He paid it anyway, and died.  It was then that our debt was finally paid and we were freed.

The second way of understanding is that, when the first man committed the first sin, he gave himself up to the power of Satan.  We rejected God and made the Devil our master, and he is a cruel master indeed.  Man was not created to die, but death and decay are unavoidable when the creature is separated from his Creator.  God became a man so that he would be able to die.  He gave Himself up as a ransom for us.  When God the Creator suffered death, the power of death was broken.

Yet Jesus Christ’s death by itself was not enough to change our fate and reverse our corruption.  The story of man is pathetic:  Every man lives a brief life and then dies.  There is nothing he can do about it:  When death comes, his time is done.  If God had come down to earth as a man, lived a short life, and just died, then our story would be even more pathetic.  But even though He is a man, He is also God, and being the Eternal Creator, death did not last for Him.  On the third day, when the whole world had never been more dismal, Christ rose as a man more glorious than man had ever been.  Death was changed and life was given a new meaning.  Jesus Christ changed us:  Death does not mean the end anymore.  We will live on forever, body and soul.

Christ’s enemy was death itself.  His problem was man’s slavery.  No man could have imagined how death might be overcome, let alone think it even possible.  The answer for Jews was to work around death; to mark one’s grave, to be remembered, and to have plenty of children to carry on the name.  But God is great.  He destroyed death.  Life was an absurdity under the threat of death but He turned the threat of death into an absurdity.  The greatness of Jesus Christ surpasses even human imagination.  A greater hero cannot be thought.

Jesus Christ trampling Death and lifting Adam and Eve from their prison

Belief in the Resurrection implies other beliefs as well:

·         Jesus was completely human; else He would not really have died or risen. 

·         Jesus was completely God; else He could not have risen (not even angels can raise the dead) and if Jesus was merely human and God raised Him, then His resurrection would not have been any more special than Lazarus’.

·         We deserve to die.

·         Death is bad; else Christ’s victory over it would not have been that great.

·         Death is not that bad anymore because it will not last forever.

·         Our bodies are good; else God would not have cared about saving them.

·         The things our bodies are designed to do (like eating, drinking, and dancing) are good.

·         If there is any such thing as good news, Easter is good news, and everyone should hear it.