Atheists More Irrational than Religious in U.S.A.

[anEvilAtheist]

The Catholic Church has spent 2000 years teaching and exploring the foundations of morality, and it does so in a highly erudite manner, just check up on all the encyclicals (on the Vatican website), and books you can find pertaining to this subject.

Just because the Catholic Church has spent 2,000 years exploring morality doesn’t mean their arguments are sound any more than Jews exploring arguments against the divinity of Jesus for 2,000 years means that their arguments are sound. And just because a lot has been written on a subject doesn’t mean that any of it succeeds. There have been many books about alien abductions, telekinesis, and magic, but that doesn’t mean that their claims are well established. Finally, in an example more germane to our discussion, just because countless books have been written on how morality can exist without God doesn’t prove that it can. I have looked at a lot of explanations for how theistic morality can be grounded and have yet to find one that is convincing.

Moreoever I have heard of the Euthyphro dilemma, and Peter Kreeft explains it thusly:

“The only rationally acceptable answer to the question of the relation between God and morality is the biblical one: morality is based on God’s eternal nature. That is why morality is essentially unchangeable. “I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:44). Our obligation to be just, kind, honest, loving, and righteous “goes all the way up” to ultimate reality, to the eternal nature of God, to what God is. That is why morality has absolute and unchangeable binding force on our conscience.”

That is how most people attempt to answer the Euthyphro dilemma. I addressed this somewhat in my original post:

Most people try to get around this problem by saying that God’s nature itself is good, but then you have the problem of whether God is good because his nature has the properties of moral goodness, or whether the properties are good merely because God has them.

The issue is not about whether God is unchanging; it is about whether good is just determined by whatever God’s nature happened to be. If there is no standard of good which God’s nature is in accordance with, God by nature could have considered love to be evil and murder to be good. If morality is whatever nature God happened to have, and there is no morality that it is in accordance with, then it seems meaningless to call God good.

I’d like to also put it in these biblical words “I am that I am”. Furthermore, God is not composed of virtuous properties but of an essence, in other words, He is Good.

Okay, but surely properties like omniscience and omnibenevolence are not completely identical. Even if God is good, this doesn’t mean that this is the totality of who he is.

 

[Joan_of_Bark]

But there must be a first cause, the Universe in and of itself cannot be eternal as it is mired in space and time? And yes you can say that everything is more likely due to an eternal cause, i.e., God created the Universe, ever heard of Ockham’s razor?

Why must there be a first cause? How do you know that the universe hasn’t always existed in an oscillating form: big bang followed by big crunch, ad infinitum?

But if indeed everything must be created, then what created God?

Ockham’s razor (also spelled Occam’s razor, pronounced AHK-uhmz RAY-zuhr) is the idea that, in trying to understand something, getting unnecessary information out of the way is the fastest way to the truth or to the best explanation. William of Ockham (1285-1349), English theologian and philosopher, spent his life developing a philosophy that reconciled religious belief with demonstratable, generally experienced truth, mainly by separating the two. Where earlier philosophers attempted to justify God’s existence with rational proof, Ockham declared religious belief to be incapable of such proof and a matter of faith.

from here.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

No apologies needed for length evilA, I do find your posts informative even though I haven’t read the articles you have just linked to but will. I could wait til tomorrow and give them a thorough review but then I start feeling like CAF is a research job. Heck, I feel I have to respond almost immediately so the poster doesn’t think I’m stuck or procrastinating. Just saw your post.

Of course, Christian morality is tough, and discerning and applying is quite difficult in certain situations (look at George Weigel jumping threw the hoops of Just War Theory with respect to Iraq in First Things.).

Yeah, the Just War Theory can be problematic. I remember that there were a lot of people (though definitely not a majority) on here who were saying that George Tiller’s killing could be morally justified using the just war theory. I found that very disturbing. Even more disturbing was that a lot of their arguments made sense, at least within the context of the Just War Theory.

What I was trying to stimulate in this thread was a recognition of the fact that the Christian religion can be seen as being quite rationally-based unlike the secular stereotypical view of it being a superstitious hocus-pocus stew. I believe, in this, I and others may have found common ground on this with you, that our Christian position is not unreasonable and may to some atheists appear reasonable.

I guess it depends on how you define reasonable. If by reasonable you mean, as some have suggested to me, that a position is reasonable if it cannot be disproven, then Christianity is reasonable. But then so is the belief that the universe was created ten seconds ago with the appearance of age and with memories implanted in our heads.

I think that some of the arguments for theism are very complex, and not everyone will be able to spot all of their flaws (I’m sure you would agree that there are some bad arguments people have used to show that God exists and there are people who didn’t see their flaws). If someone has been exposed to more or better arguments for theism than atheism, it may be reasonable for them to conclude that based on what they know, theism seems more reasonable.

On the subject of rationality, there is a legal term in Civil Law cases for proof – it is called the Standard of Probability. It is not like the criminal law standard of Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (a professor once explained to me the latter meant 90% certain of guilt). The Standard of Probability asks you to judge which proposition is more likely to be true (50% +). I was arguing that on a standard of probabilities the Existence of God is more rational and believable than belief in No God. One could have eminently reasonable grounds for believing in God, as Mortimer Adler argued in How To Think About God: A Guide for the 20th Century Pagan (p.s. have you ever read him on “exnihilation”).

I also think this is the correct standard. I have sometimes thought really deeply on whether based on what I currently know, there is any way I could convince myself that there is anything close to a 50% chance that the Christian God exists. Right now I really don’t think I can, but that could always change if I find good reasons to think that he does exist. One thing that seems like it will make it more difficult for me, at least with regards to Catholicism, is the canon that says “If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.” I’ve read up a bit on the meaning of anathema, and it sounds like it’s heretical to disagree with that canon. Even using a more liberal definition of “certainty”, for example taking it to mean “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it’s far harder to believe that this canon is probably true than it is to believe that Christianity is probably true.

No, I have not read Adler. But I did recently start reading Swinburne’s The Existence of God.

On Catholic morality, since there are character limits in single posts the most succinct response for me personally is what is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraphs 1950-1974 on the Moral Law here scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a1.htm#1950. Here I found a concise explanation of the Moral Law - the source in the eternal law of God, natural law, revealed law, and the Old and New Law of the Gospel. “The moral law finds its fullness and its unity in Christ. Jesus Christ is in person the way of perfection.”

Okay, but I don’t see how this get’s around the problem posed by the Euthyphro dilemma.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

C.S. Lewis wrote about the Tao in The Abolition of Man and Scott Hahn alludes to it below which, pardon my apparent brazenness, I think could apply to the theory of desirism you described:

** People will usually recognize evil, even if they are reluctant to recognize good. Some might look at an apparently heroic action and imagine a selfish motive behind it…Few people, however, will hesitate to call evil by its name.
Yet, once they have done so, they have placed themselves in a bind. Indeed, they have bound themselves by law. Because evil is possible only as the perversion** of something good, the opposite of something good, the denial of something good. Once people have judged something evil, they have acknowledged a transcendent standard of good. They themselves have placed the world under a law.
Nor can they escape the bind by saying that law exists, but merely as a utilitarian stopgap, to ensure the safety of the greatest number of people. For even then they are invoking transcendent standards: the notion, for example, that the common good is greater than individual good; or that anyone should be concerned with another person’s safety…[Condemnations of murder or theft] are among the moral truths that human beings naturally know…the ‘natural law’ " (Hahn, Reasons To Believe pg42-43.

Now I know you might take umbrage of me using a quote against utilitarianism (which you differentiate from desirism) but the general statement as to recognizing “evil” entailing recognition of transcendent standards is apropos IMHO and not irrelevant to our discussion.

This is one problem I see with the moral argument. Apologists show that someone has no good reason to think that evil actually exists, as opposed to people merely having a strong personal aversion to something. And then they try to convince someone that God exists because of this. But if someone realizes that there is no reason for them to think that morality exists and they want to believe in morality, this does not provide any evidence that God does exist. It is merely an appeal to emotion. Most people do not want to believe that morality does not exist, and as a result may find it more emotionally appealing to believe in a God without good evidence than to accept that they have no evidence that morality does exist.

On the provenance of Good, I again feel another scholar J.P. Moreland put it most concisely when he stated: "I think God’s will is ultimately expressed in keeping with His nature. Morality is ultimately grounded in the nature of God, not independently of God. There is a Euthypro-type argument that Bertrand Russel raised against theism – namely, that for the theist, morality is either arbitrarily grounded in God’s will or it’s grounded in something outside of God. But this is a false disjunction. I think the tertium quid is that morality can be grounded in God’s own nature. We obey God because He is good and loving. Now, when I state that God is good, I’m not stating a tautology" Does God Exist Moreland and Nielsen, (pg. 131).

I know that this is the response that many people give. But I explained in my original post why I think this objection does not work. I then explained it in a bit more detail in response for josie’s post. But if you want more detail, I suggest you check out Wes Morriston’s articles.

Now you’ll forgive me as I am too tired to see if I have anywhere made use of genetic fallacy nor have I have spoken of Barth, the divine command theory or other theories. I guess we’re in the Non-Catholic Religions Subforum and not Apologetics, hence my self-interested need in not overtaxing my limited reasoning powers. But if you want to criticize the argument anEvilA, go ahead, and please don’t feel rushed! I haven’t even looked at the Buckley debate you linked to yet.

I don’t think you explicitly made the genetic fallacy in your original post. I was just pointing out that none of it had anything to do with whether or not theism is true. By the way, don’t feel like you have to watch the debate. I was just using it to illustrate a point. There are a lot of other debates of Craig’s that I think are far better, i.e. ones in which the atheist actually makes half decent arguments (his debates with Sinnott-Armstrong, Dacey, and Parsons for example).

My principle thrust was for the reasonableness of being a Christian vis-a-vis the atheist. I was also bemoaning the coarsening of contemporary culture (i.e. Bill Maher) and believe that prominent Democrat Zbigniew Brzezinksi was onto something when he wrote: "modern society…creates a culture inimical to the preservation of an important social domain reserved for the religious. An increasingly permissive culture, exploiting the principle of separation of church and state, squeezes out the religious factor but without substituting for it any secular ‘categorical imperatives’, thereby transforming the inner moral code into a vacuum. That moral vacuum defines the essential meaning of the notion of spiritual emptiness – an emptiness which appears to be increasingly pervasive in much of what is called Western civilization." Out of Control, pg. 68

I personally believe atheism for most people would bring “spiritual emptiness”; hence, why so many might claim to be agnostics as at least they leave room for religious spiritual fullness. I believe the Christian argument for God has just as much reasonableness as the case for atheism, probably more IMHO. That’s me two cents worth guv’ner. God Bless.

And I respectfully disagree.

By the way, I think it makes the most sense (based on their etymology and current usage among nonbelievers) to define an agnostic as someone who does not know for certain whether God exists, and an atheist as someone who does not believe in God. By those definitions, I am an agnostic atheist.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Forgive me, but this sounds like B.F. Skinner. Maybe this is absurd, but to enforce the above system would require soameone or some institution to mete out praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment.

It’s not a top down system of enforcing morality. It describes how people can encourage people to behave morally. For example, if I do a favor for a friend, they thank me. If I do a good job at work, my boss might praise me, and might even offer me a monetary reward. If a child acts up, a parent might punish him. If someone tries to defraud me, I might condemn their action. If a man robs someone, the government might throw him in jail.

EvilA, who would you trust to praise you, condemn you, reward you, and punish you? Or would you do this yourself, or is this a role you see falling to some government in the future which would put “desirism” in practice? In any event, given your above statement, Who or What ultimately decides what is good in such a moral system?. It cannot certainly be left to each individual as individuals, if left to their own wits, will interpret what is good differently, even with respect to others’ desires.

I think it is pretty clear that actions such as rape and murder inevitably tend to thwart quite a lot of desires. But there certainly will be some borderline cases in which a study is needed to determine whether or not something is a good desire. But I don’t think it’s a good criticism of a moral theory that not everyone will instantly know whether something is right or wrong. It would be great if we instantly knew the answers to all scientific and moral questions, but the lack of such knowledge doesn’t invalidate morality any more than it does science.

Tens of millions of people praised and loved Stalin when he was simultaneously shooting their grandparents and sending their kids to state-run orphanages. As Vassily Grossman wrote in Forever Flowing, people died on Moscow’s icy streets during the Butcher’s funeral just so they could get close to the building housing the deceased. Stalin’s right hand man, Molotov, had his wife sent to the Gulag during the Doctors’ Plot. Molotov thought this right. She suffered in the Gulag being kept alive by victims of collectivization ironically whom Molotov had imprisoned. Nevertheless, after Stalin died, Molotov’s wife’s first question upon release was “Where is Stalin”. She broke down in unstoppable tears on hearing of his death. Molotov praised the butcher Stalin to his dieing day. This is not unique.

But, it shows the errors possible when individual desires are used as a measuring stick for morality as desirism appears to do.

I don’t think there’s any reasonable way to justify such actions under desirism. Errors of a much lesser magnitude are certainly possible. But I again don’t see the significance. Sometimes scientists make incorrect hypotheses, but this does not invalidate science.

What if the Leader and his subjects all desire that some millions should be killed? On what basis could one object under desirism if the victim and killer both agree on this. Bukharin, the "smartest’ Soviet wrote a love letter to Stalin before Stalin’s sentence was carried out on him - death. You see, sometimes desires are not good indicators whatsoever of the “good” even if they are mutually agreed.

Desirism is rooted in desires, not acts. The desire to kill another human is a desire that almost always thwarts very strong desires. So it is a desire that we generally want to discourage rather than encourage. This may certainly lead to specific incidents in which fewer desires are fulfilled, but in the big picture, more are fulfilled. For example, in a Sophie’s Choice type situation in which a parent has to kill one of her children or they both die, more desires will be fulfilled if the parent has a strong desire to kill one of her children and delights in carrying out the act. But that is not a person with good desires. Those are not desires that we would like to encourage, for they may lead to them killing people in non-Sophie’s Choice situations. I also think in your specific example, the killing was bad. I think that persuading a bunch of people that they want to die and then killing them is a desire that we generally have good reason to discourage and would thwart more desires than it would fulfill.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

You would be quite surprised I believe. If you have ever read any war memoirs, there are stories of individual soldiers in hopeless or maddening situations refusing to lose it and kill prisoners or civilians or kill themselves in hopeless situations because they believed it wrong as Christians to commit murder or suicide. If they got out of it, they’d be thankful for the chance to live.

I agree with you that religion can motivate people to do profound good, and I’m sure there are people who do more good deeds as Christians than they would as atheists. I was just trying to say that if someone did not desire to go to heaven, did not desire to avoid hell, did not care about following his conscience, did not care about going to jail, did not love God and desire to live in accordance with his moral law, and did not want to do what is moral under desirism, then neither desirism nor Catholicism would be able to convince him not to commit a crime.

How many people in situations of acute mental anguish, clinical depression, or other mental illness have actually refused to commit suicide out of believing it wrong under Christ and that life is a gift (even with suffering) from God. Their families and loved ones would be eternally grateful.

Well I definitely don’t agree that they would be eternally grateful. And I also don’t agree that prolonging a life of extreme anguish is always good. If someone is certain to die within a year and will be in extreme agony for the rest of it, I think they should have the option of ending their life. The family will mourn regardless of whether they end their life sooner, and I for one would be much happier knowing that someone was able to die peacefully and did not have to endure a year of excruciating pain.

I mean even Alcoholics Anonymous I believe has learned that ultimately reason won’t work and God needs to be resorted to and our dependence on him.

They didn’t learn that; they started with that presupposition, as shown by the early history of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there are very successful non-religious alternatives such as Secular Organizations for Sobriety.

And one personal note: before being called to the Bar, I had like all others to receive lectures on proper practice, stress, and such by one lawyer who specialized in treating alcoholism in JUDGES! These men, these justices, were in the positions they were because of their superior capacity for Reasoning on Complicated Issues. Reason was their implement. Yet my lecturer emphasized to all of us students that we would never believe the high-profile judges or lawyers for that matter who were incapacitated because of their desire for alcohol. Names that would be readily recognizable to many in society. That lesson stayed with me. Even the most reasonable people on earth who condemn and punish other people, may not be able to control their own desires whatsoever.

I believe reason, desirism is not enough. There is a loving God, and we all need Him, even the smartest ones.

Even if I would rather live in a world with a God, I haven’t seen any good reason to believe that I do live in such a world.

 

[josie_L]

Why must there be a first cause? How do you know that the universe hasn’t always existed in an oscillating form: big bang followed by big crunch, ad infinitum?

Because as I mentioned the Universe is mired in space and time (i.e., it has a beginning), and therefore only an eternal first cause (outside space and time) could have created the Universe (or Universes).

But if indeed everything must be created, then what created God?

If God is eternal than he does not need a first cause because to be created is something that can only make sense if connected to space and time, but being eternal God is outside of space and time therefore eternity is sort of “past, present future” always. There is just no concept of time.

from here.

The reason I brought up Ockham’s razor was to show that of all the likely hypotheses available concerning creation, it is the God Hypothesis that is the simplest and most rational of responses (which is the rationale behind Ockham’s rule, it eliminates those hypotheses that are too complicated and/or unnecessary to the phenomenon being studied).

“Occam’s razor or Ockham’s razor[1], attributed to 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham is the principle that “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” or, popularly applied, “when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”[2] The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.”

 

[KyivAndrew]

One thing that seems like it will make it more difficult for me, at least with regards to Catholicism, is the canon that says “If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.” I’ve read up a bit on the meaning of anathema, and it sounds like it’s heretical to disagree with that canon. Even using a more liberal definition of “certainty”, for example taking it to mean “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it’s far harder to believe that this canon is probably true than it is to believe that Christianity is probably true.

Hi EvilA. From the link you gave on anatherma debunking two falsehoods:

1. Anathemas are still in place today. This is the single most common falsehood one encounters regarding anathemas in the writings of anti-Catholics. They aren’t in place today. The penalty was employed so infrequently over the course of history that it is doubtful that anyone under an anathema was alive when the new Code of Canon Law came out in 1983, when even the penalty itself was abolished.
2. The Church cannot retract its anathemas. Anti-Catholics love to repeat this falsehood for rhetorical flourish. But again, it isn’t true. The Church is free to abolish any penalty of ecclesiastical law it wants to, and it did abolish this one.

I do not see this as a contemporary problem. As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (as he then was) stated in a book coauthored with Jurgen Haberamas Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion:

“We have seen then that there exist pathologies in religion that are extremely dangerous and that make it necessary to see the divine light of reason as a ‘controlling organ’. Religion must continually allow itself to be purified and structured by reason; and this was the view of the Church Fathers, too. However, we have also seen in the course of our reflections that there are also pathologies of reason, although mankind in general is not as conscious of this fact today. There is a hubris of reason that is no less dangerous. Indeed, bearing in mind its potential effects, it poses an even greater threat – it suffices here to think of the atomic bomb or of man as a ‘product’. This is why reason, too, must be warned to keep within proper limits, and it must learn willingness to listen to the great religious traditions of mankind. If it cuts itself completely adrift and rejects this willingness to learn, this relatedness, reason becomes destructive.” (pg. 77-78)

I quote this under your anathema objection from history because as the Pope averred, religion must continually allow itself to be purified.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Okay, but I don’t see how this get’s around the problem posed by the Euthyphro dilemma.

I don’t believe the Euthyphro dilemma is fatal to Christianity in any way just as I cannot see the atheist case on the dilemma as being 100% full-proof of some falseness in Christianity. I always thought this particular dilemma had more bearing on Islam.

You know as I do there are varying Christian approaches to the dilemma which, while not full-proof make a reasonable stand:

“Even the atheist understands what moral terms mean. He doesn’t need God in order to recognize morality. He needs God to make sense of what he recognizes.
This is precisely why the moral argument for God’s existence is such a good one. The awareness of morality leads to God much as the awareness of falling apples leads to gravity. Our moral intuitions recognize the effect, but what is the adequate cause? If God does not exist, then moral terms are actually incoherent and our moral intuitions are nonsense.
Christians need not fear Plato on this score. When Euthyphro’s dilemma is applied to Christianity, it mischaracterizes the Biblical view of God. Goodness is neither above God nor merely willed by Him. Instead, ethics are grounded in His holy character. Moral notions are not arbitrary and given to caprice. They are fixed and absolute, grounded in God’s immutable nature.
Further, no outside definition of piety is necessary because morality is known directly through the faculty of moral intuition. God’s laws express His character and–if our moral intuitions are intact–we immediately recognize those Laws as good.
This doesn’t mean Christianity is true, only that it’s is not handicapped by Plato’s challenge to Euthyphro.”
str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5236

“The first thing to emphasize is just what this chapter has not demonstrated. It has not shown that Divine Nature Theory or and other form of DCT, is true. Nor has it offered responses to all possible objections to such positions. It has shown, however, that there are versions of DCT which preserve God’s sovereignty over the moral realm without falling prey to two popular arguments against such positions: the Euthyphro dilemma, and Nielsen’s epistemological argument.
We responded to the Euthyphro dilemma by pointing out that the commands of an omniscient, loving, generous, merciful, patient and truthful being would not be issued without reason, and that since these characteristics are essential to God, His commands possess a strong modal status. It was also observed that God’s possession of these attributes is sufficient to give significant content to God’s goodness. In the last section of the chapter, we considered various objections according to which DNT, due ascribing essential goodness to God, is incompatible with other traditional theistic doctrines. We showed these charges to be unfounded.
In closing this chapter, I offer the reader the following ‘Euthyphro’ dilemma: Do you say things are good because they are good, or are they good because you say they are? If the latter, then your moral standard seems to be subjective and arbitrary (and you can’t object if God’s turns out likewise). However, if you choose the former, then you have to explain where the moral standard comes from … and Divine Nature Theory is certainly an option!”
theism.net/article/29

Divine Command Theory, Divine Nature Theory, or using the tertium quid approach that the dilemma is a false disjunction – all can be argued to varying degrees with reason, just as an atheist’s case can.

 

[KyivAndrew]

I think it is pretty clear that actions such as rape and murder inevitably tend to thwart quite a lot of desires.
Desirism is rooted in desires, not acts. The desire to kill another human is a desire that almost always thwarts very strong desires. So it is a desire that we generally want to discourage rather than encourage.

I have started reading some of the info. you linked to on desirism. With all due respect, I find a system of morality which uses “desire” as the standard and juxtaposing two different desires and determining what is “right” to be dangerous. The desire to murder, rape is wrong period, using Christian morality. It is not wrong simply because it “tends to thwart a lot of desires” as you argue.

There are good desires and there certainly are bad desires. What of the desire for Fame, Power, or Hedonism. If a drug pusher desires to sell heroin and an autonomous bright person desires to use heroin often, how does desirism condemn this? On what grounds if desires are the sole arbiters. Or should it simply not condemn it?

What of Euthanasia? Christianity states every human life is a gift from God, made in the image of God, and requiring dignity of the person. In pagan Roman times, many parents, in keeping with society’s repulsion at handicaps, should they wind up with an ill child, would simply desire to crush and smash the ill baby on the rocks and discard the baby. How would desirism object? What of the Nazi Euthanasia program where the government and maybe even some family members desired that the schizophrenic, the epileptic, the senile, young or old, be murdered? On what grounds, in the absence of objective morals, could desirism object? Should it even?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

anEvilAtheist;5756150:

One thing that seems like it will make it more difficult for me, at least with regards to Catholicism, is the canon that says “If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.” I’ve read up a bit on the meaning of anathema

, and it sounds like it’s heretical to disagree with that canon. Even using a more liberal definition of “certainty”, for example taking it to mean “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it’s far harder to believe that this canon is probably true than it is to believe that Christianity is probably true.

Hi EvilA. From the link you gave on anatherma debunking two falsehoods:

1. Anathemas are still in place today. This is the single most common falsehood one encounters regarding anathemas in the writings of anti-Catholics. They aren’t in place today. The penalty was employed so infrequently over the course of history that it is doubtful that anyone under an anathema was alive when the new Code of Canon Law came out in 1983, when even the penalty itself was abolished.
2. The Church cannot retract its anathemas. Anti-Catholics love to repeat this falsehood for rhetorical flourish. But again, it isn’t true. The Church is free to abolish any penalty of ecclesiastical law it wants to, and it did abolish this one.

Read the paragraphs that come right after the section you quoted. It appears to remain a heresy for a Catholic to disagree with that canon:

Because the penalty [of anathema] has been abolished, a word should be said about the status of the conciliar canons that employed this penalty. In addition to prescribing the imposition of a juridical penalty, the phrase anathema sit (“let him be anathema”) also came to be one of the phrases that the Church traditionally has used to issue doctrinal definitions.

Catholic scholars have long recognized that when an ecumenical council applies this phrase to a doctrinal matter, then the matter is settled infallibly. (If a council applied the phrase to a disciplinary matter, then the matter would not be settled infallibly, since only matters of doctrine, not discipline, are subject to doctrinal definition.)

Thus, when Trent and other ecumenical councils employed anathema sit in regard to doctrinal matters, not only was a judicial penalty prescribed but a doctrinal definition was also made. Today, the judicial penalty may be gone, but the doctrinal definition remains. Everything that was infallibly decided by these councils is still infallibly settled.

This has consequences under current canon law. Those things that are both divinely revealed by God and proposed as such by the Church cannot be obdurately denied or doubted without the offense of heresy (CIC [1983] 751). Heresy does carry a penalty of automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication (can. 1041, 2º), though this does not apply to those who have never been members of the Catholic Church (can. 11), and even then there is a significant list of exceptions (can. 1323).

 

[KyivAndrew]

Read the paragraphs that come right after the section you quoted. It appears to remain a heresy for a Catholic to disagree with that canon:

I did indeed and understand your concern, obviously. I note the emphasis is on the lack of judicial penalty now, but I obviously can see where you are coming from. gotta run for now

 

[josie_L]

I agree completely. But I just think that some of your claims are based more on personal speculations than on such studies. But if there are studies you’ve read that do examine the effects of the sexual revolution, I’d be interested in taking a look.

How can it be personal speculations, the sexual/cultural revolution signifies change and/or a restructuring of our morals, i.e., traditional morals were more or less done away with or considered passe? Here are two researchers describing the sexual revolution:

Risman and Schwartz believe that there is no counterrevolution, but instead the sexual revolution was such a success that it has revised the framework of how American society thinks about sex.** It redefined sexual activity as a right of individuals and not merely as a means for reproduction or even marital intimacy.**

So how can you say that the increase in sexual activity/promiscuousness, pornography, out of wedlock births, STDs, divorces are not somehow causally linked to this event?

Here are some interesting reads:

eng.russ-yug.ru/article/1217/

bookrags.com/news/new-study-shows-herpes-cases-moc/

forgottenvirtue.com/chapter6.htm

caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sop.2002.45.3.267

But what you say is reason seems to be just inferring that two things that could be in a causal relation must be in a causal relation, just because there was a major change in both at the same time. If, as others have said, other countries did not have this correlation between liberalization and crime, then there may be some other reason.

There has to be a link as radical (influential) changes were made to our society with regard to sex and culture, in fact, the rise in crime and immorality began to make itself apparent not long after this event. Here’s a website put together by an atheist:

Family breakdown and the sexual revolution

Another cause of crime is clearly the breakdown of the family, the absence of fathers, and an increased toleration for the abandonment of mothers and children while men move on in search of more fulfilling sexual relationships. The almost total breakdown of the traditional family is a dominant feature, perhaps the most dominant feature, of high-crime, “underclass” areas in the West.

Can Married Parents Reduce Crime? - Studies showing a strong link between family breakdown and crime.

Discussion

In some ways, this is the same issue as above - that crime is caused by ideas. In this case, the underclass is adopting bad ideas about marriage and sexual relationships developed by middle class intellectuals in the 20th century.

You should party in the sexual revolution, not raise children in it:

While the middle class experiment with sexual chaos when young, they often avoid pregancy, get a career first, get married and then have children, often very late, in their 30s. And I quite like these aspects of the sexual revolution, and would not like to turn the clock back. But people need to be responsible with their freedom, by using contraception diligently, and not having children until you have a career and a stable relationship for life. The middle classes are often responsible, instinctively (if only because they worry about their careers).

As Theodore Dalrymple shows, the underclass, however, live in the world of sexual chaos that the middle class only flirt with. They raise their children in this world, rather than just partying in it. They take the ideas of the sexual revolution theorists seriously, which in many ways the middle class do not. And these bad ideas - that families are not necessary to raise children - are clearly a major cause of crime and dysfunction.
Dalrymple is different to many writers on family breakdown and the sexual revolution because he is not religious. In fact, he is an atheist. He is simply interested in whether the sexual revolution has made the underclass happy. To which the answer is obviously no. It has led to an increase, not decrease, in rape, domestic violence, child abuse, and all forms of abuse of women and children."

markhumphrys.com/crime.html

And it was never said that there was no link between liberalization and crime, what was stated is that America as compared to other liberal countries did not fare so well in terms of crime rate, however, one should not be comparing countries so much as comparing pre/post periods of the cultural/sexual revolution of the respective country in question.

Okay, but the more widespread pornography became, the fewer rapes there were. If you looked at the links I cited, you’ll see that as pornography became more and more accessible, first with movie theaters, then home videos, and then the internet, rape became less frequent. Additionally, people in states with little access to internet pornography had an increase in the number of rapes, even while the country as a whole had a significant decline. Furthermore, I think pornography offers people a safe outlet for their sexual urges and could prevent someone from resorting to rape. So I definitely don’t think it’s an “absolutely ridiculous” position. I don’t think the data is yet good enough to know for sure, but I think that based on the evidence, it’s more likely that pornography decreases the number of rapes rather than increases them.

I wasn’t arguing per se that rape will increase with pornography so much as arguing against the idea that pornography decreases rape, that to me is hogwash considering that before the sexual revolution rape was much much lower than what it is now. Furthermore, where was pornography when rapes was at its peak in the 80’s?

to be continued. . .

 

[josie_L]

I didn’t just mean just safety; I meant that in cases where the couple grew to hate each other, it may be better for the child if they divorced rather than raised him in a dysfunctional household. I recognize that divorce can be extraordinarily painful for children in many cases; I was just saying there are some cases where I think it’s good. I think that it’s much more important to focus on the type of environment the family provides, then on the raw divorce numbers.

Here’s more information:

"Many statistics are little known because they do not fit in with the prevailing ideology. We wish these things weren’t true, so we ignore them. A few major examples are:

Child abuse, rape, and violence against women are statistically far more common outside marriage than within marriage:

Marriage: The Safest Place for Women and Children by Patrick F. Fagan and Kirk A. Johnson, April 10, 2002.

The Best Father’s Day Gift by Patrick Fagan, June 14, 2002.

Step-fathers are (statistically) far more likely to abuse than natural fathers.

Even unmarried natural fathers are statistically far more likely to abuse than married natural fathers.

For unhappy marriages, getting divorced is statistically a bad idea. It will (statistically) make everyone more unhappy than staying together:

Does Divorce Make People Happy? (2002 study).

Happy marriages and unhappy divorces by Mona Charen, July 19, 2002. “The data show that if a couple is unhappy, the chances of their being happily married 5 years hence are 64 percent if they remain together but only 19 percent if they divorce and remarry. … Those who enter marriage with a dim (some might say accurate) view of divorce and a strong religious or other motivation for avoiding it are not only less likely to divorce, they are also less likely to be unhappy.”

Children of divorce have (statistically) more problems of all types, and are statistically more likely to divorce themselves. This could lead to the heartless (yet objectively true) advice to your child that if you want your marriage to last, pick someone from a stable background - someone whose parents have stayed together.

While we’re at it, married men are richer, live longer and have more and better sex than single men. Why are all these statistics so shocking and contrary to the pious politically-correct ideas we were taught growing up?"

markhumphrys.com/crime.html

This website is chalk full with statistical reports and comparisons, so it would be greatly beneficial to our mutual understanding if you read it. God bless.

 

[josie_L]

I have started reading some of the info. you linked to on desirism. With all due respect, I find a system of morality which uses “desire” as the standard and juxtaposing two different desires and determining what is “right” to be dangerous. The desire to murder, rape is wrong period, using Christian morality. It is not wrong simply because it “tends to thwart a lot of desires” as you argue.

There are good desires and there certainly are bad desires. What of the desire for Fame, Power, or Hedonism. If a drug pusher desires to sell heroin and an autonomous bright person desires to use heroin often, how does desirism condemn this? On what grounds if desires are the sole arbiters. Or should it simply not condemn it?

What of Euthanasia? Christianity states every human life is a gift from God, made in the image of God, and requiring dignity of the person. In pagan Roman times, many parents, in keeping with society’s repulsion at handicaps, should they wind up with an ill child, would simply desire to crush and smash the ill baby on the rocks and discard the baby. How would desirism object? What of the Nazi Euthanasia program where the government and maybe even some family members desired that the schizophrenic, the epileptic, the senile, young or old, be murdered? On what grounds, in the absence of objective morals, could desirism object? Should it even?

Just to lend credence to what you say, here’s a quote from a child molester:

The idea that what’s popular determines what’s right can tamper with the delicate mechanism called conscience. Larry McQuay, a school bus driver who molested more than two hundred children said, **“Sometimes I wish I was born a hundred years ago when you could marry a twelve-year-old girl and nobody would think twice about it. Or back in the Greek culture when they had sex with boys. But in today’s society that’s not acceptable and I’m not a time traveler, so I can’t go back into another society or another culture.” **

forgottenvirtue.com/chapter6.htm

 

[yankee_doodle]

Isn’t true that in Medieval Christian culture it was common for a male to marry a much younger female? In fact we don’t even have to travel much further than a century back in time to find a period where males married extremely young females (usually in their early teens), in what was a much more Christian culture.

This isn’t saying anything bad about Christianity, it’s just illustrating how fallacious it can be to uniformly attribute cultural practices (whether good or bad) to religion – or lack thereof.

 

[KEVIN_WILCOX]

The history of women’s rights is a history of atrocity - they have been considered to have no soul, no brain, to be put on this earth to drag man to hell (St Augustine considered them a doorway to the devil), only recently have they been given the vote and in income their traditional jobs (nurse, teacher, secretary) are amongst the lowest paid of any.
For man they have been a puzzlement: Devils handmaid or the Virgin Mary?

 

[josie_L]

The history of women’s rights is a history of atrocity - they have been considered to have no soul, no brain, to be put on this earth to drag man to hell (St Augustine considered them a doorway to the devil), only recently have they been given the vote and in income their traditional jobs (nurse, teacher, secretary) are amongst the lowest paid of any.
For man they have been a puzzlement: Devils handmaid or the Virgin Mary?

Human history has been atrocious, but what has this got to do with the topic at hand? Furthermore, I think you’re taking St. Augustine out of context (you see St. Augustine struggled with sins of the flesh, and for him women were a weakness), secondly, do you think you can supply some statistical evidence of how nurses, teachers and secretaries are the lowest paid jobs (I know in Canada they are paid very well)?

 

[yankee_doodle]

The history of women’s rights is a history of atrocity - they have been considered to have no soul, no brain, to be put on this earth to drag man to hell (St Augustine considered them a doorway to the devil), only recently have they been given the vote and in income their traditional jobs (nurse, teacher, secretary) are amongst the lowest paid of any.
For man they have been a puzzlement: Devils handmaid or the Virgin Mary?

For some context, although teaching and nursing have been “female” jobs for decades (maybe even centuries), secretaries were at one time male occupations (and of course teaching began as a male occupation – among the ancients anyway).

Gender equality was common among some pre-Christianized peoples (such as the Vikings). However, women never had much say in Roman or Greek pagan civilization (or of course ancient Hebrew society), and monotheism didn’t make things any better in the west.

What has made things better for women is the development of secular western culture. Although many religious people were involved in our social development, the development itself wasn’t “religious” (for example, it was more often than not in spite of the language found in scripture rather than because of it). Women are clearly subjugated by the bible (and scriptures of all Abrahamic faiths). I think this reflects the primitive societies these faith systems were created in rather than anything inherently bad about religion (well, except for the obvious, none of it is true ).

 

[josie_L]

Women were much ameliorated by Christianity when it was introduced into the Roman world, in fact, the majority of converts were women. Here’s an excerpt from Thomas Wood’s “How the Catholic Church Built Wester Civilization”,

"The Church taught that intimate relations were to be confined to husband and wife. Even Edward Gibbon, who blamed Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, was compelled to admit: “The dignity of marriage was restored by the Christians.” The second century Greek physician Galen, so struck by the rectitude of Christian sexual behaviour, described them as “so far advanced in self-discipline and . . . intense desire to attain moral excellence that they are in no way inferior to true philosophers.”

“Adultery, according to the Church, was not confined to a wife’s infidelity to her husband, as the ancient world so often had it, but also extended to a husband’s unfaithfulness to his wife. The Church’s influence in this area was of great historical significance which is why Edward Westermarck, an accomplished historian of the institution of marriage, credited Christian influence with the equalization of the sin of adultery.”

“These principles account in part for why women formed so much of the Christian population of the early centuries of the Church. So numerous were female Christians that the Romans used to dismiss Christianity as a religion for women. Part of the attraction that the faith held for women was that the Church sanctified marriage, elevating it to the level of a sacrament, and prohibited divorce (which really meant that men could not leave their wives with nothing to go marry another woman). Women also attained substantially more autonomy thanks to Catholicism. “Women found protection in the teachings of the Church.” writes philosopher Robert Phillips, " and were permitted to form communities of religious who would be self governing - something unheard of in any culture of the ancient world . . . Look at the catalogue of saints filled up with women. Where in the world were women able to run their own schools, convents, colleges, hospitals and orphanages outside of Catholicism?”