Letters Against Murder Worship

by Edward N. Haas


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Softcover
$11.95
Softcover
$11.95

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 2/23/2001

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 5x8
Page Count : 308
ISBN : 9780759613720

About the Book

We humans exhibit a most amazing proficiency in the skill of rationalizing our acts, beliefs, desires, and so forth. We are so proficient at it, that even those who seem mentally inferior in the extreme can--when accused of wrongdoing--stun you when you witness how rapidly and easily they produce intricate and compelling excuses able to transform even the most heinous of deeds into acts of august merit. No matter how incapable of avoiding even the deepest depths of poverty and illiteracy, virtually every human being’s ability to defend the integrity of his or her ego reaches the pinnacle of success very early in life. This ability never recedes from that pinnacle no matter how long life may last.

That capacity is particularly stunning when it comes to rationalizing direct assaults upon the life of what is known, or reasonably suspected to be, an innocent human being. Wherever abortion, euthanasia, and the deliberate slaughter of non-combatants in warfare promise a quick solution to pressing problems, most people can easily produce "iron-clad" arguments "proving" the seemingly murderous solution is actually "love", "the most moral thing ever done", "an ambition of the highest and noblest kind which ever perhaps existed", or some other such awesome thing. It’s commonly called using the end to "justify" the means.

But, when you use an august end to justify the means, you attribute to the means a sublime utility, and, thereby, necessarily deify it. Therefore, when you say that directly killing the innocent can sometimes serve such exalted goals as "love", "the most moral thing every done", and "an ambition of the highest and noblest kind which ever perhaps existed", you attribute to murder a utility so exalted, you necessarily worship murder whether or not you intend to do so.

In the letters, which comprise this book, the author is repeatedly hammering away at this business of rationalizing abortion, euthanasia, and the targeting of non-combatants in warfare. He is repeatedly trying to show that to attribute sublime utility to these three forms of murder is a kind of mental illness, which must eventually have exceedingly tragic consequences for all who nurture that mental illness within themselves. Above all, he tries to warn the "murder worshippers" of the one eternal consequence of their action--namely this: In death’s all-revealing light, they shall behold for a fact that their tactic was indeed--by God’s eternal standards!--nothing more than a diabolical attempt to worship murder. Seeing that, they will not fail to hurl themselves into hell in an unbelievably fanatical and hate-filled attempt to curse God forever. And for what?! Because His Infinitely Informed Truth dares to defame that greatly what they spent their whole lives insisting was something of Sublime Utility!


About the Author

Born April 13, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the author graduated from Jesuit high school, in New Orleans, in 1953. A single fruitless semester studying music at Loyola University of the South in New Orleans was followed by almost two years of floundering in a sea of confusion, and the author then joined the U. S. Air Force on Dec. 7, 1955. Honorably discharged in April of 1960, the author underwent another two and a half years of floundering so severe, he came extremely close to a mental breakdown. In desperation, he gave away everything he owned and, for thirteen years, took to the life of a wandering hermit. In search of as much time and energy as possible for inner reflection upon self, God, and the nature and purpose of reality, he criss-crossed the United States on foot four times. At first, he lived off of whatever food and clothing he could beg; but, after learning how to live on a dollar a day or less, he turned to working at various monasteries in the winter time in exchange for the two to three hundred dollars required to feed and to clothe himself during the next spring, summer, and fall of walking. The monasteries also provided access to libraries in which he could read, and extract notes from, the great writings of the Catholic Church. In the course of that thirteen-year odyssey, there was a four year period during which he refused to speak to anyone (except on very rare occasions) and communicated only by means of written notes.

In August of 1975, the author’s father lost his mind, and the author’s siblings insisted he was the only one in the family with the time and ability to tend to their father in his hour of need. Thus, after thirteen years, the author’s preferred lifestyle came to an end. Dire poverty then gave way to economic independence, and total seclusion gave way to what little privacy can be enjoyed by bachelors who prefer to avoid partying and to stay home and--as much as possible--to bury themselves in as much reading and writing as the world around them will allow.

After his father’s death in 1981, the author took care of his mother until her death in 1996. In this book, the self-educated author of dozens of mostly unpublished books and pamphlets seeks to share with others the avenues of thought down which his mind was lead by thirteen years of heroically intense inner concentration followed by twenty-two years of moderately intense inner concentration.