Pete_
Hi Pete. Please forgive me for not yet reading this entire thread, but, as I started at the beginning I ran across this comment and I would like to start with that:
Perhaps I am missing your point. Catholicism allegedly supports it moral prohibitions based on natural law, a moral theory that can work in the context of atheism. Thus the justification for Catholic morality is not theological but purely logical.
Thus secular philopsophers could use natural law as a basis for morality I do not know of any that do, this seems to suggest that it is unsound in some way.
I’m not sure where you got the notion that atheism’s context would work with catholic moral theory. From my limited exposure to such things, I would say that the Church often uses some of what you might call ‘the enemy’ sources to back up her own, as if to say it’s so obvious that even they are seeing this particular bit of light, but apart from that I would say use your commen sense about this.
First of all, what is secularism and atheism? Secondly, what is catholicism? Do you see polar opposites there? Now if you believe that secularism is some sort of neutral turf I think you are quite wrong, at least in terms of modern day secularism (perhaps all of secularism as well).
Modern day secularism is about keeping christian expression muted, and, I also conclude, ultimately to destroy it. If you value secularism to some higher standard, and that standard is untrue of what it is, then naturally you won’t see the threat for what it is to christianity.
Also, thinking on atheism, are you aware of the Biblical text (forgive me as I know not where it is) that he who believes not in God is a fool? Now how is it very possible for something so opposed to christianity, that it is called foolish in the founding christian book, going to be in much agreement with it (atheism)? What’s more, from what I have seen of most atheists, perhaps inaccurately, they do believe in God in the sense that He exists, but they don’t want to serve. I mean, really, if He doesn’t exist, if people are really crazy for following a myth and what not, why spend all the time some of them do, to convince others otherwise that He does not? If I think somebody believes in Peter Pan, I will think he’s crazy and keep my distance, which seems to me should be the reaction of the atheist, that is, if they really believe God doesn’t exist. The problem is they do believe it, but they just haven’t admitted it yet and like I said have all sorts of reasons why they won’t serve. I’m sure many of them, have a problem with catholicism in particular, not only because catholicism is the complete truth (as opposed to protestantism being partial), but in the case in which you present, that of sexual morays, it is the most diffiuclt to see themselves obeying.
Understand too, about the non-baptised, which atheism has a large share, that baptism removes “some” clouds. This may be over simplifying things, but God gives gifts usually in stages. Baptism is the first stage, or, the want to receive Baptism that comes before that. You might say that God cannot give full knowledge and understanding, and, of course, never does “entirely” give it all, because you would have to be God to be able to take it all in, but only in what is usually a gradual process. You might say that you have to do well at point A, to get to point B, but in the spiritual plane, it’s more complicated than that, but that is how it might be most understandable to those outside general christian thought.
I will also tell you this, that while Catholicism may “support” some of it’s moral prohibitions on what you said, it does not “base” it on those things. IOW, if somebody is an atheist, or secular, with the limited vision they have, there will be something of those viewpoints that will be supporting a good many prohibitions, but it doesn’t mean atheists will see that. Surely you can understand, that there are some people who might had convinced themselves that they want to see the truth, when they do not, such that anything which would bring truth to light would be automatically blocked out. OTOH, a christian can say atheism supports something, but, in a sense, that is in error, because while one doesn’t have to believe in God to necessarily see some particular light, the reality is that often what is true of atheism, is not true of it’s adherents. It’s like saying that there’s atheism in it’s textbook form, and then there’s atheism in the people themselves. Atheism is seen for what it proclaims itself to be when these notions of support come up, and in that context it can ‘possibly’ be seen to uphold a particular prohibition, but when very many atheists themselves aren’t what they claim to be (as I described above), unwittingly perhaps, they then often cannot see how their system supports it.
I hope this helped.
