Sex Is Everywhere at Work

[hellopeople]

The teachings of the Church, we believe, apply to all mankind. It is intrinsically evil–immoral–to use or promote the use of contraception. It really doesn’t matter if we agree on the practical effects of contraception as helping or hurting those who use it. If God says it is wrong–even if we become convinced it helps people tremendously–we will see it as wrong and we should refuse to participate in it. Now, I think it happens to be true that everything which God says is wrong is ultimately harmful to humans, and everything He says is good is beneficial to us. But I cannot guarantee these effects to be readily identifiable to us. And we will never intentionally stray from Him because we think our brief, narrow observations prove our beliefs more wise than His.

Your whole concept is based on the Church knowing God’s will. What if the church is wrong?

 

[kage_ar]

Is it really evil? People are going to have sex and disregard the teachings of the church. That is true of just about everyone in college (at least the great majority). Why not show them how to have sex so they do not put their health in danger and don’t have unwanted kids? Do you think of STD’s as a kind of punishment for fornicators?

Since people are going to murder anyway, why don’t we just have handy “body disposal chipper shredder” boxes so they don’t have to get caught?

And since they are going to rob banks anyway, let’s send them a schedule of when the security systems go down for maintenence!

All illness is the punishment of sin, Adam and Eve gave us that legacy.

 

[kage_ar]

Your whole concept is based on the Church knowing God’s will. What if the church is wrong?

If the Church is wrong, what have I missed? A lifetime of heartache and suffering from things that are not kind (hate, envy, killing, fornication). And I die and poof, there is nothingness.

However, the Church is right I have had a life of compassion and peace, joy and balance and then when I die I live forever with Him.

What on earth do I have to lose?

 

[hellopeople]

Since people are going to murder anyway, why don’t we just have handy “body disposal chipper shredder” boxes so they don’t have to get caught?

And since they are going to rob banks anyway, let’s send them a schedule of when the security systems go down for maintenence!

All illness is the punishment of sin, Adam and Eve gave us that legacy.

The difference is that any decent moral system will have stealing and murder as something wrong. Many moral systems don’t see anything wrong with having pre marital sex, and it isn’t your place to force your morals on people.

 

[hellopeople]

If the Church is wrong, what have I missed? A lifetime of heartache and suffering from things that are not kind (hate, envy, killing, fornication). And I die and poof, there is nothingness.

However, the Church is right I have had a life of compassion and peace, joy and balance and then when I die I live forever with Him.

What on earth do I have to lose?

I don’t know why you are equating the church being wrong with there being no God. That wasn’t what I meant at all. What I am trying to say is that most of the people on these boards take Catholic morality as God’s word, but what if its wrong? What if you get to heaven and God says “you should have promoted condoms in Africa?”

 

[Newbie2]

By working there, you are cooperating with evil. Get another job.

Get another job, maybe, but cooperating with evil? I dunno. Jesus ate with sinners, was he cooperating with them? Perhaps the OP was lead to work there for a reason…

Morality doesn’t have to stem from God or Jesus. One of my most trusted friends (and most moral) is an atheist. I think the golden rule can be the basis for a secular morality. It really makes the most sense.

Off thread, sorry, but where does your friend think a sense of right and wrong come from? If there is no God, then there is no ultimate source for good, and good and evil mean nothing.

Your whole concept is based on the Church knowing God’s will. What if the church is wrong?

I believe St. Paul answered that one, in a sense. If the Church is wrong, we are the biggest rubes of all time, pitiable morons to be sure (at least when it comes to her teachings on salvation).

 

[camerong]

Morality doesn’t have to stem from God or Jesus. One of my most trusted friends (and most moral) is an atheist. I think the golden rule can be the basis for a secular morality. It really makes the most sense.

What is the point of the golden rule if we’re all destined to nothingness? Why does it make the most sense?

 

[camerong]

Your whole concept is based on the Church knowing God’s will. What if the church is wrong?

You asked why a Catholic doesn’t do something (specifically, why he doesn’t give out contraception anyway). He is doing exactly what you do every day. Judging the best thing to do, and doing it. Specifically, he has concluded that the Church is Christ’s Body on earth. I presume that you don’t hedge your steps in case you are wrong–when is the last time you went to Church “just in case”?

In fact, if the Church is wrong, I very much suspect it doesn’t matter whether he gives out condoms or not. Because if the Church is wrong, nothing at all matters. One cannot say that certain paths of molecules are somehow better than other paths. With no higher power, with nothing but atoms moving about, with nothing behind all of this, it is meaningless to say that some actions are better than others.

 

[kage_ar]

Get another job, maybe, but cooperating with evil? I dunno. Jesus ate with sinners, was he cooperating with them? Perhaps the OP was lead to work there for a reason…

Jesus ate with sinners, everyone is a sinner.

Jesus did not answer the phones and make copies for sinners, he did not take a paycheck from them.

If we can work anywhere without cooperating with evil, they are hiring for a receptionist up at the strip club and I’ve heard that planned parenthood has a GREAT dental plan.

 

[Eris_Discordia]

This may well be hijacking this thread, but if you deny the existence of God–assuming you do–how can you say its immoral to cheat? What is your basis for any kind of morality? I think the poster you quoted was using the only kind of self-consistent atheism I’ve ever heard of: we are merely material, so it really doesn’t matter if we move in one way or another (cheating or not cheating).

I disagree. I don’t believe in absolute morality but I am monogamous. I don’t cheat, because it’s hurting someone else. I don’t hurt people, because it’s wrong. An atheist doesn’t believe in God, but still has morality.

 

[hellopeople]

What is the point of the golden rule if we’re all destined to nothingness? Why does it make the most sense?

If this logic were right, there would be a huge gap in morals between atheists and believers. From what I have seen myself, I cannot see a gap at all. Do none of you feel compassion? Do none of you feel bad for people? Do none of you feel good when you help someone? Is everything you do to please God, or is it to help your fellow man?

 

[hellopeople]

You asked why a Catholic doesn’t do something (specifically, why he doesn’t give out contraception anyway). He is doing exactly what you do every day. Judging the best thing to do, and doing it. Specifically, he has concluded that the Church is Christ’s Body on earth. I presume that you don’t hedge your steps in case you are wrong–when is the last time you went to Church “just in case”?

In fact, if the Church is wrong, I very much suspect it doesn’t matter whether he gives out condoms or not. Because if the Church is wrong, nothing at all matters. One cannot say that certain paths of molecules are somehow better than other paths. With no higher power, with nothing but atoms moving about, with nothing behind all of this, it is meaningless to say that some actions are better than others.

I’m not talking about if there is a God or not, or even if Jesus is God. I am talking about the church being wrong in terms of morality. Maybe Jesus would have promoted condoms? Who knows.

 

[hellopeople]

I disagree. I don’t believe in absolute morality but I am monogamous. I don’t cheat, because it’s hurting someone else. I don’t hurt people, because it’s wrong. An atheist doesn’t believe in God, but still has morality.

Exactly. For some reason these people can’t understand that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes I think that if all believers became atheist, some of them would become sociopaths because God is the only thing stopping them from killing and raping. I mean people have practically said that on this board.

 

[Lethe]

I disagree completely. As Catholics we have a responsibility to speak up and let people know our objections when we are asked to do things that we find morally objectionable. One of the reasons our society is so morally bankrupt is that we have been silent too much. You never know who you might inspire by taking a respectful stand. My prayers will be with you.

Which is absolutely fine if you’re talking about birth control in your own time, but this is a job, and it REQUIRES giving out/condoning birth control as an option. You cannot judge people like that if you work in a health environment. You can stand outside, as a protestor, but you cannot say to someone who has asked for contraception ‘no, I won’t give it to you, it’s against my belief’ - it is a service the business offers.

The only way I can think you’d be able to do this in a work situation, is if there are enough other staff that you simply don’t have to deal with that area of the job - as with some Muslims and selling alcohol/cigarettes as part of a supermarket/convenience store job, they can get someone else to do that part.

 

[Lethe]

This may well be hijacking this thread, but if you deny the existence of God–assuming you do–how can you say its immoral to cheat? What is your basis for any kind of morality? I think the poster you quoted was using the only kind of self-consistent atheism I’ve ever heard of: we are merely material, so it really doesn’t matter if we move in one way or another (cheating or not cheating).

So you don’t care about other people?! I treat others as I’d like to be treated, and that includes pretty much everything I disagree with: stealing, lying, cheating, murder, physical assault, emotional assault… you name it. I can empathise with people, and put myself in their shoes, and that is all I require for my morality.

What is the point of the golden rule if we’re all destined to nothingness? Why does it make the most sense?

Because we still want to be happy/free from pain in this life, whether or not it is followed by an afterlife. And if we want to be happy and free from pain, so do others. And we should try to make others happy, inasfar as it doesnt hurt anybody else.

 

[Lethe]

Since people are going to murder anyway, why don’t we just have handy “body disposal chipper shredder” boxes so they don’t have to get caught?

And since they are going to rob banks anyway, let’s send them a schedule of when the security systems go down for maintenence!

All illness is the punishment of sin, Adam and Eve gave us that legacy.

These are completely different things. Humans are designed to have sex, just like [other] animals, and most fornicators (I would hope) are past puberty, where their bodies are able to have sex for reproduction, as is natural. Marriage makes sex permissable. There is no ceremony you can go through to make murdering or robbing permissible, nor are either of them good, natrually - sex creates life, murdering takes it away, robbing damages people’s lives.

People fornicated less before contraception, but they also got married earlier, so they were still having sex…

 

[Newbie2]

Jesus ate with sinners, everyone is a sinner.

Jesus did not answer the phones and make copies for sinners, he did not take a paycheck from them.

If we can work anywhere without cooperating with evil, they are hiring for a receptionist up at the strip club and I’ve heard that planned parenthood has a GREAT dental plan.

How do you know that the Almighty wouldn’t put people like the OP in certain employment situations in order to evangelize to his or her co-workers?

 

[camerong]

Exactly. For some reason these people can’t understand that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes I think that if all believers became atheist, some of them would become sociopaths because God is the only thing stopping them from killing and raping. I mean people have practically said that on this board.

The logic you and other nontheists use to respond is circular. “I don’t do it because its wrong. Why is it wrong? Because it hurts others. Why is it bad to hurt others? Because its wrong.” As I asked previously, what is your basis for morality?

Now, as far as making yourself happy, that is consistent with atheism, but clearly there are some times that morality and making oneself immediately happy diverge sharply. At least for most people, I would imagine. So if an atheist does something that is right but that also makes him unhappy, then he is acting inconsistently with his beliefs.

Morality is what stops me from behaving badly, as it does you. But the difference between our beliefs is I recognize that morality can only come from God. You, I submit, recognize the existence of morality, but not believing in God, cannot identify a source for it. I further submit that without God, there can be no source for morality. And if something has no source, it is imagined. And there is no reason to change our actions because of something imagined. That is why believing in morality is inconsistent with atheism (at least materialist atheism–perhaps not certain types of Buddhist or Hindu atheism, and the like).

If this logic were right, there would be a huge gap in morals between atheists and believers. From what I have seen myself, I cannot see a gap at all. Do none of you feel compassion? Do none of you feel bad for people? Do none of you feel good when you help someone? Is everything you do to please God, or is it to help your fellow man?

There is no gap in morals between atheists and believers because the existence of morality is undeniable to all. The difference is that atheists argue that there is no absolute power, and yet obey one.

To clarify things, let me again say the discussion ought to come down to situations in which doing the wrong thing would make us happy and not harm others. If doing the right thing also makes us happy–by relieving us of guilt, etc–then we are not doing it to be right but to satisfy our desires. My assertion is that atheists have no reason to act morally outside of satisfying their own desires, and whenever they do so, they are acting inconsistently with their own assertions that there is no absolute.

 

[hellopeople]

The logic you and other nontheists use to respond is circular. “I don’t do it because its wrong. Why is it wrong? Because it hurts others. Why is it bad to hurt others? Because its wrong.” As I asked previously, what is your basis for morality?

EMPATHY. I don’t like to be hurt by others, so why would it be OK for me to hurt others but expect differently in return? You don’t have to believe in God to be a good person.

 

[hellopeople]

There is no gap in morals between atheists and believers because the existence of morality is undeniable to all. The difference is that atheists argue that there is no absolute power, and yet obey one.

What do you mean atheists obey an absolute power?

To clarify things, let me again say the discussion ought to come down to situations in which doing the wrong thing would make us happy and not harm others. If doing the right thing also makes us happy–by relieving us of guilt, etc–then we are not doing it to be right but to satisfy our desires. My assertion is that atheists have no reason to act morally outside of satisfying their own desires, and whenever they do so, they are acting inconsistently with their own assertions that there is no absolute.

Atheism does not equal hedonism. If I asked my friend to help me do something, he would probably do it, even if it would be some work and he wouldn’t really want to. He would do it to help me out. He empathizes with me, realizes I need help, and would help me because he knows it is the right thing to do.

You don’t need to believe in God to want to treat others hospitably. Do you even know any atheists? I just don’t understand it.

The only things that atheists lighten up on are things like pre marital sex and sexual sins because objectively these things are not wrong. Without the church saying they were wrong, they would be morally permissible in my opinion.