Original Sin, Free Will, ADD, and There Goes the Air Conditioner

I started writing yesterday's post (October 14, 2010) rather late in the evening, after a sleep-deprived preceding night. Not a good combination for staying on-track. Particularly considering my circumstances.

As I mentioned yesterday, and before, I've been diagnosed as having ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder. I got the news a week ago.

I had two topics in mind when I started writing:

• The Catholic Church doesn't require Catholics to be flawless
• The Catholic worldview requires that we recognize that humanity, people, are flawed

That last point is where the following part of yesterday's post came in:

Background (expanded):

• Catechism of the Catholic Church
  • Original sin, 407
    • Inner conversion, 1888
    • The way of perfection, 2015
  • Promise of final victory, 410
    • "In the image of God," and Jesus 705
    • "In his mercy God has not forsaken sinful man...." 1609
    • Revelation, prayer, and God, 2568
• "Memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes"
  Homily by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barrigán, XIV World Day of the Sick, Solemn Eucharistic Concelebration in the Cathedral of Adelaide, Australia, via Vatican.va (February 11, 2006)
• "Address of His Holiness John Paul II to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota"
  Vatican.va (February 10, 1995)

Note, please: "flawed" isn't (quite) "inherently evil." (October 12, 2010) Catholic teaching about original sin isn't that God created an evil species: but that humanity made a really bad choice early on. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 385-412, summarized in 413-421)

Which brings up the topic of free will. (Catechism, 1730-1742, for starters)

And my wife, #3 daughter, and son have taken the air conditioner out of the window behind me. It's a beautiful October day, but winter's coming on. None of which is mentioned in the Catechism: another example of how Catholic teaching tends to focus on principles, like 'murder isn't nice and we shouldn't do it;' and less on what sort of air conditioner we should use. Or whether air conditioners should be used at all.

And that's a plethora of other topics.

Related post:

• "ADD and Me: Good News, Bad News"
  (October 14, 2010)