I don't get it...if you are a non-Catholic Christian, then why aren't you a Catholic Christian?

[larkin31]

Great okay now we are getting somewhere.

Do you believe the holocaust was absolutely evil? Or do you believe that it was only evil in certain communities where their “combinations” would lead them to believe it was evil and therefore could have been good considering other “combinations”?

You know my answer. I do not intend to repeat the same answer for every ethical scenario that you can ask about.

Just make your own claim instead of trying to get me to change mine. I have stated WHY I call all morality “subjective” (because it is a HUMAN judgment made in the mind). This does not mean that there are no nearly universally shared values on our planet (infanticide being one of the nearly universal evils). But it is NOT ALWAYS shunned, not matter what I might think of it, and that I might disagree with it has nothing to do with making it “objective.”

 

[PRmerger]

Nope.

I would never state any of those things, and have never. There are exceptions to each of those absolute claims.

Give me an example of rape being good.

And murder being good.

 

[larkin31]

larkin you made the claim that all absolutes have an exception which is in fact an absolute claim. If you are going to be a skeptic why not be the ultimate skeptic?

God bless

this is just rhetorical masturbation now

and I am not interested

 

[larkin31]

Give me an example of rape being good.

And murder being good.

Why? I don’t think they are good.

 

[PRmerger]

Why? I don’t think they are good.

There you go. You believe that rape is evil. You believe in the Golden Rule. You believe in following one’s conscience, even if it means disobeying society.

 

[larkin31]

There you go. You believe that rape is evil. You believe in the Golden Rule. You believe in following one’s conscience, even if it means disobeying society.

Yup, most of the time. I do. A completely subjective judgment by one individual’s mind.

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Just make your own claim instead of trying to get me to change mine. I have stated WHY I call all morality “subjective” (because it is a HUMAN judgment made in the mind). This does not mean that there are no nearly universally shared values on our planet (infanticide being one of the nearly universal evils).

So how can you make judgments on anything? Why should **I ** care what you think is evil? Why should a rapist care? A murderer? Hitler? Because your “combinations” say so? Hitlers combinations told him that the holocaust was a good thing. How can you condemn that? How can you pronounce judgement on that? When in the end he used the same standard to determine his morality as you did?

God bless

 

[PRmerger]

Once again, you are allowing only an either/or scenario, which is a fallacy of logic.

That makes no sense. One of the basic principles of Philosophy is the either/or scenario. It’s called the Principle of non-contradiction, which we’ve already discussed.

Now, not all things are either/or. In fact, most of Catholicism is both/and.

But **either **you must obey your conscience always, **or **you’re obeying something else when you decide on the morality of a situation.

You can not provide any example of someone doing the morally right thing who disobeys his conscience and obeys something else.

I believe that the best behavior is a combination of one’s own conscience informed by the morality and historical and artistic and cultural history of one’s society. There is no such thing as ONLY one’s conscience or ONLY the cultural values. Put another way, I object to the claim that EITHER one follows the cultural mores OR one must follow one’s conscience. One can, of course, find ways to combine both or ways to avoid both.

So give me an example in which one would be morally right to disobey his conscience.

For the record, I** don’t think that one “must”** ever do anything, except exist and die…eventually.

I think this is an example of one of those statements that you referenced earlier: (see below)

I will, in the next week, contradict myself

You’re going to say that you do realize that there are things we as moral human persons “must” do. (Well, I know you’re not going to admit it here on a semi-public forum, but…)

I know you are a moral person, or I would not be giving you the time of day. “Ignore” status would be my release from this.

A moral person knows he is obligated to do good and avoid evil. It is our obligation if you’re a moral person. That is, it is a MUST.

 

[Cinette]

The reason I am not 100% Catholic is because of some of the posts from some.

*Never mind posts. What about behaviour?

Tweety I am 100% Catholic and other people’s posts or behaviour has nothing to do with it.

A curious thing. My husband took 11% to convert from the time he began to attend Mass with me and one thing which touched him profoundly was the devotion and reverence he saw in worshippers around him. I do believe we all have an influence good and bad on others.

It is for us to always remember that we have a duty to give a good example.

tweet, tweet - Cinette

 

[larkin31]

So how can you make judgments on anything?

It’s not that hard. People do it every day, many times a day.

And I sure don’t care if everyone listens to me. The law helps out in that regard.

 

[PRmerger]

Yup, most of the time. I do.

And when would it be the moral thing to disobey your conscience?

A completely subjective judgment by one individual’s mind.

NOW we’re going to get to my favorite part: proving God’s existence from your belief that conscience must be obeyed.

Coming up!

(Right after you provide me with an example of a person being moral by disobeying his conscience! )

 

[Cinette]

Nope.

I would never state any of those things, and have never. There are exceptions to each of those absolute claims.

*You make an excellent devil’s advocate!

*

 

[PRmerger]

So, when someone asks, “Did you have a good day?” you consider that a waste of time?

Nope. But to have dialogue about whether it’s true that I think my day is good or bad would be weird.

So, when I post “I don’t believe that there are moral absolutes” your response is “When you post that here you make clear that you believe that there are moral absolutes because no one would post here if they did not believe in moral absolutes.”

HAHAHA

No. When you post here you are saying that what you believe is true. You believe in its absolute truth. Otherwise, we’re having a silly discussion along the lines of
“Chocolate is my favorite!”
“No, you have to like vanilla!”

:hypno:

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

It’s not that hard. People do it every day, many times a day.

And I sure don’t care if everyone listens to me. The law helps out in that regard.

How can you condemn the actions of those individuals like Hitler, Bundy or McVeigh when in the end all they had done was use your subjective standard to direct their actions?

You can say that you “think” they are wrong based on your “combinations” but you cannot say absolutely that the killing of an innocent and defenseless man (in some cases millions) is evil. Do you really believe this larkin? That is was not absolutely evil to have committed the holocaust?

You asked me to make my own claims; I think that you do believe the holocaust was an absolute evil. I think you believe this act was outside and transcended the limits of anyone’s combinations. I think you believe the killing of a young, innocent child is an absolute evil that transcends people’s combinations. This is why people keep asking you about these “moral scenarios” that you abject to because no one believes that you take a oh-hum attitude to the killing of millions as if it was some child who stole a piece of candy from the candy store. I was once an agnostic too. I was the absolute skeptic that I spoke of earlier that you took so much exception too. I too told myself that morality was subjective but deep down I knew that the holocaust was absolutely evil. I knew that the killing of an innocent defenseless child was an absolutely evil act. I knew it, I just didn’t want to admit it because of its implications.

God bless you

 

[tweetymom]

*Never mind posts. What about behaviour?

Tweety I am 100% Catholic and other people’s posts or behaviour has nothing to do with it.

A curious thing. My husband took 11% to convert from the time he began to attend Mass with me and one thing which touched him profoundly was the devotion and reverence he saw in worshippers around him. I do believe we all have an influence good and bad on others.

It is for us to always remember that we have a duty to give a good example.

tweet, tweet - Cinette

I am sure you are a lovely Catholic and for that I am sure you are very happy. I cannot be 100% Catholic for one reason I do not believe in a lot of what the CC teaches to be truth. I also have seen a lot of unkind Catholics here that make rude remarks towards people who do not agree with them, I have not seen this so much in the Parish I attend but here is a different story. So I am mostly Protestant and will always remain that way and see ya when Jesus comes back

 

[Jimmy_B]

Never mind posts. What about behaviour?

Tweety I am 100% Catholic and other people’s posts or behaviour has nothing to do with it.

A curious thing. My husband took 11% to convert from the time he began to attend Mass with me and one thing which touched him profoundly was the devotion and reverence he saw in worshippers around him. I do believe we all have an influence good and bad on others.

It is for us to always remember that we have a duty to give a good example.

tweet, tweet - Cinette

This is a great post and I agree with all of it. It also made me realize that in the time I’ve spent here at CAF, I have had some negative and positive experiences from both Catholics and Protestants and neither have affected my faith. I think it boils down to the person and not the denominations and the fact that you’ll get along with some people and with others you won’t, that’s life.

Sometimes, people like you better when they get to know you, sometimes, the more they know you, the less they like you because of ideological differences…what are yah gonna do?

I probably have as many Protestant friends here that I do Catholic. Jon is one of my favorite people here and he is Lutheran.

I spend nearly all of my time here at CAF, in the non-Catholic religions section, because I’ve been “beat-up” more by some Catholics here, than I have Protestants and I don’t like to debate Catholicism with Catholics.

The solution, is to be forgiving…“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” and to obey the two most important Commandments, the second being love they neighbor as thyself but that’s sometimes easier said than done. I keep trying though… I’ll always be Catholic.

 

[Jimmy_B]

I am sure you are a lovely Catholic and for that I am sure you are very happy. I cannot be 100% Catholic for one reason I do not believe in a lot of what the CC teaches to be truth. I also have seen a lot of unkind Catholics here that make rude remarks towards people who do not agree with them, I have not seen this so much in the Parish I attend but here is a different story. So I am mostly Protestant and will always remain that way and see ya when Jesus comes back

People who truly believe in Jesus, love even their enemies and that, one would think, would include “rude Catholics”. I’m constantly working on this myself…loving my enemies… it’s not easy at times…but It seems to me that forgiving people and asking for forgiveness is the key.
God Bless…

 

[benedictus2]

Truth can be limited and transient and complicated. Fortunately.

Wrong. Truth is neither limited nor transient. Our** perception of the truth** can be limited and maybe transient. Unfortunately.

 

[benedictus2]

Once again you are wrong about me, my dear friend in Christ! The reason I have never converted is about attitude, not misconceptions! Almost every catholic that I know personally, displays an attitude of superiority and condescencion!

I think you have got that wrong. Catholics know that their faith (not them, but their faith) is superior and there is nothing wrong with that. A person who knows that the earth revolves around the sun posseses superior knowledge to the one who still maintains that the earth is the centre of the universe. This is a mere acknowledgement of fact. Nothing wrong with that.

I wonder how you feel about the pagans and non-Christians. Do you think they are as enlightened as you? Do you think their religion is equal to yours?

When meeting them, would you say to them that everything is okay they do not have to believe in Jesus because what they believe is on par with what you believe? Or do you think to yourself that these people are misguided?

They drop F-bombs on people, and call you an idiot if you don’t believe the way they do! I really believe that many on this forum are restrained only by forum rules and not charity! And you don’t know the first thing I believe, or whether it is my pastor’s interpretation or my understanding of things revealed to me by the Holy Spirit!

Aaah, but how do you know that it is indeed the Holy Spirit who guided you in your belief?

At least weekly, one or more catholics help to solidify my decision to remain noncatholic!

That is because you focus too much on the attitude. Focus on the arguments. That’s what most people who converted did. They did not look at the behaviour or attitude of Tom, Doris and Harry. They just looked at the teachings. They studied. Don’t let the bickering sidetrack you from pursuing the truth. That is just the devil distracting you from going after Truth. Seek truth.

 

[larkin31]

How can you condemn the actions of those individuals like Hitler, Bundy or McVeigh when in the end all they had done was use your subjective standard to direct their actions?

You can say that you “think” they are wrong based on your “combinations” but you cannot say absolutely that the killing of an innocent and defenseless man (in some cases millions) is evil. Do you really believe this larkin? That is was not absolutely evil to have committed the holocaust?

You asked me to make my own claims; I think that you do believe the holocaust was an absolute evil. I think you believe this act was outside and transcended the limits of anyone’s combinations. I think you believe the killing of a young, innocent child is an absolute evil that transcends people’s combinations. This is why people keep asking you about these “moral scenarios” that you abject to because no one believes that you take a oh-hum attitude to the killing of millions as if it was some child who stole a piece of candy from the candy store. I was once an agnostic too. I was the absolute skeptic that I spoke of earlier that you took so much exception too. I too told myself that morality was subjective but deep down I knew that the holocaust was absolutely evil. I knew that the killing of an innocent defenseless child was an absolutely evil act. I knew it, I just didn’t want to admit it because of its implications.

God bless you

I deplore the killings of innocent people. I truly do. Don’t mistake my argument for subjectivity for indifference.

But when the God of the Bible wipes out whole cities or all but two of every species on the earth, how can I claim that all mass murder is wrong? I just won’t claim the absolute, and I know that the word “wrong” is a concept that only sentient beings would come up with.

You all seem to be missing my point about subjective points of view being dependent on a “mind” and certain ideas not existing outside of a mind.