There is no natural law... so kindly DROP it

[AntalKalnoky]

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060704050625/en.futurama/images/8/85/Hypnotoad_animated.gif

Thank you Alan, this actually touches on one of the many parts explaining the natural law in the Catholic Encyclopedia (I will have to reread it since I must admit I’m a slow learner): here is a snippet taken from newadvent.org/cathen/09076a.htm

I guess in the end the argument against the OP would be to show there is a difference between not using something and not possessing something. For example just because I do not use a hammer does not mean I do not own a hammer or something to that affect, right?

Why EVER “Argue”?

 

[The_Scott]

No you did not. I did not answer your post, because I am most certainly not interested in some medieval speculation.

Just because it’s “old” doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant.

What philosophy do you adhere to? Do you only listen to the philosophy of Mill, Nietzsche, or some other near-contemporary? Even those are at least another 100 years old!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Spock
**
There are a couple of dozen of “feral children”. These poor beings grew up in a wild environment, without human companionship. As such, during their formative years they were not exposed to languages, and so they never learned to communicate. They are unable to learn to speak. They are essentially wild animals in a human form.

So to keep talking about some “pre-wired” morality (which these children clearly lack) is a biological absurdity. **

What’s really absurd is your notion that feral children exist in a state on nature. It’s like saying fish out of water is really where fish are natural. Humans are natural only in a family and social environment. Everywhere in the world thinking people recognize that there are natural do’s and don’ts … except apparently you!

 

[babylonsfalling]

The euphemism “the natural law, which is inscribed unto every human heart” is sheer nonsense. What it implies is that humans are born with a “natural set of do’s and don’t’s”, or a “natural moral guide”. Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate. ***<—The “proofs” offered by science only last until a better sounding proof comes around a few years later.***Our brain is not “preformatted” like the neural system of insects. <—Did anyone say it was? It is our greatest strength that we are able to learn. ***<—A well trained German Shepard might believe the same thing while happily munching on it’s reward-snacks. Our greatest ability lies in our ability to connect with God and in truth that’s much more a gift than an ability. *** We do have an affinity to learn languages, and via the languages we learn everything else.

**There are a couple of dozen of “feral children”. These poor beings grew up in a wild environment, without human companionship. As such, during their formative years they were not exposed to languages, and so they never learned to communicate. They are unable to learn to speak. They are essentially wild animals in a human form. **<—You’re REALLY on the wrong track if you think feral children or any other human developmental problem disproves anything about the law being written on the hearts of men. It’s actually more “logical” to claim that a humans compassionate reaction to feral children DOES prove that God’s law is written on the hearts of men.

So to keep talking about some “pre-wired” morality (which these children clearly lack) is a biological absurdity. Our moral norms are a learned behavior. <—At this point in our history, much of our morality is taught by parents, schools, laws etc. It still originated from the “writing on our heart” though. Logically speaking Spock, it’s only natural that societies would end up forming around the laws written on our hearts and start handing them down from one generation to another. It is one thing to keep on believing all sorts of “angels” and “demons” - after all these alleged beings cannot be detected, and as such cannot be proven or disproven. It is a completely different ballgame to believe what has been shown to be false - like this ridiculous concept of “natural law - inscribed unto the human heart”. To keep on believing nonsense like this marks the believer as a fully irrational person. It is a sad thing that so many of the posters around here keep on believing these and other assorted nonsense, and when they are told about their error, they simply close their ears.<—You seem to have a special, venom for natural law. Why does this irritate you so much?

You’re not being “logical” Spock.
Science has already been wrong about too many things to logically trust their proofs. It’ll remain that way as long as knowledge remains a growing unfolding kind of thing.
You also seem to be having an especially illogical and over emotional reaction to the subject of natural law. Does it make you angry for some reason?

After all, all people are really doing here is crediting a different source (God) than what you credit. What’s so upsetting about that?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

The euphemism “the natural law, which is inscribed unto every human heart” is sheer nonsense. What it implies is that humans are born with a “natural set of do’s and don’t’s”, or a “natural moral guide”. Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate. Our brain is not “preformatted” like the neural system of insects. It is our greatest strength that we are able to learn. We do have an affinity to learn languages, and via the languages we learn everything else.

There are a couple of dozen of “feral children”. These poor beings grew up in a wild environment, without human companionship. As such, during their formative years they were not exposed to languages, and so they never learned to communicate. They are unable to learn to speak. They are essentially wild animals in a human form.

So to keep talking about some “pre-wired” morality (which these children clearly lack) is a biological absurdity. Our moral norms are a learned behavior. It is one thing to keep on believing all sorts of “angels” and “demons” - after all these alleged beings cannot be detected, and as such cannot be proven or disproven. It is a completely different ballgame to believe what has been shown to be false - like this ridiculous concept of “natural law - inscribed unto the human heart”. To keep on believing nonsense like this marks the believer as a fully irrational person. It is a sad thing that so many of the posters around here keep on believing these and other assorted nonsense, and when they are told about their error, they simply close their ears.

I’ll mostly just address the biological end of this argument, since you deny teleological responses.

When you say things like “Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate,” you are displaying a fundamental ignorance of science and biology on multiple levels, as well as the nature of the scientific method. “Biology” doesn’t prove anything, individual scientists do research that can provide evidence one way or another, and most of those would disagree with your statement. You’re charting an interesting new course here, though, in breaking away from your atheist peers in stating that we are born tabula rasa, BTW. Most atheists would disagree with you very strongly, as many of their arguments for a non-religious morality rest on an “evolved” or “inherent” sense of right and wrong, and base their arguments on inherited behavior using the theories of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, and many biologists, psychologists, and anthropologists would disagree with you on the inheritability of behavior. But props to you for disagreeing with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Edward Wilson, Charles Darwin, Konrad Lorenz, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Nikolas Tiinbergen, Lionel Tiger, Robin Fox (the last two are sociobiologists, not Beatrix Potter characters, BTW), Frans de Waal, Robert Wright, Donald Symons, Anne Campbell, et al! You can start your own school of biology! You go, Spock!

Certainly it would be hard to argue that much human elective behavior (that doesn’t appear to be autonomic) is inherited, from a biological perspective - dogs that point aren’t taught to point, it’s inherited behavior within their species or breed. So your tabula rasa argument isn’t really supported.

The argument that feral children somehow represent mankind in its natural state can only be described as specious. Abandoned children are by definition abused, and don’t represent our true natures any more than a child born without full brain function does. As we are communal, family-based organisms, we require others to shelter, feed, and teach us from the earliest age, to deny these rights to a child is to handicap the child. The child is still human, and still has moral capacity, but obviously has a diminished sphere of responsibility from a moral sense, and would presumably be judged accordingly in a court of law or in divine judgment. If an individual’s cognitive faculties are not allowed to fully develop or function in the manner for which they are designed, that does not mean there is not an intended design. I can operate my car without properly lubricating it and the engine will not function; that does not mean that there is not a “correct” way for it to function, as intended by the designer of the vehicle.

As Alvin Plantinga wrote,

Many systems of your body, obviously, are designed to work in a certain kind of environment. You can’t breathe under water; your muscles atrophy in zero gravity; you can’t get enough oxygen at the top of Mount Everest. Clearly, the same goes for your cognitive faculties; they too will achieve their purpose only if functioning in an environment much like the one for which they were designed.

We can say that a feral child’s cognitive faculties are stunted because they are not used in the way for which we, as humans, are designed - to learn from our human parents and those around us.

Plantinga further noted that the notion of proper function for any system is inextricably bound to the notion of a design plan - our bodies are constructed in such a way, that there is a way that they should work and are supposed to work, which requires a design in our cognitive faculties, as well as a designer. The fact that, due to abuse or malfunction, one’s cognitive functions don’t easily recognize the Natural Law, does not invalidate the concept of Natural Law.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The one thing that bothers me about expressions such as what some one “knows by heart” is that it is derived from a time when people thought the heart was the “seat of the mind” prior to learning that it was the brain that takes on this functioning. It was a very literal statement, that your cardiac muscle is where your thinking occurs. I can understand how they might have drawn that conclusion given the changes in heart beat that follow emotional states. In modern times it has been recast as a metaphor, but has not always been.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

The euphemism “the natural law, which is inscribed unto every human heart” is sheer nonsense. What it implies is that humans are born with a “natural set of do’s and don’t’s”, or a “natural moral guide”. Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate. Our brain is not “preformatted” like the neural system of insects. It is our greatest strength that we are able to learn. We do have an affinity to learn languages, and via the languages we learn everything else.

There are a couple of dozen of “feral children”. These poor beings grew up in a wild environment, without human companionship. As such, during their formative years they were not exposed to languages, and so they never learned to communicate. They are unable to learn to speak. They are essentially wild animals in a human form.

So to keep talking about some “pre-wired” morality (which these children clearly lack) is a biological absurdity. Our moral norms are a learned behavior. It is one thing to keep on believing all sorts of “angels” and “demons” - after all these alleged beings cannot be detected, and as such cannot be proven or disproven. It is a completely different ballgame to believe what has been shown to be false - like this ridiculous concept of “natural law - inscribed unto the human heart”. To keep on believing nonsense like this marks the believer as a fully irrational person. It is a sad thing that so many of the posters around here keep on believing these and other assorted nonsense, and when they are told about their error, they simply close their ears.

And you sir, do not know what you are talking about. These statements are a classic example of a little education being a dangerous thing!

 

[Touchstone]

The euphemism “the natural law, which is inscribed unto every human heart” is sheer nonsense. What it implies is that humans are born with a “natural set of do’s and don’t’s”, or a “natural moral guide”. Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate. Our brain is not “preformatted” like the neural system of insects. It is our greatest strength that we are able to learn. We do have an affinity to learn languages, and via the languages we learn everything else.

What an odd post to read from you. I don’t know which feral children you are referring to – from what I recall, there have only been a few dozen cases to look at, all or nearly all individual cases, which makes any social inferences problematic – but while humans have a vast capacity for “cognitive plasticity”, the ability to learn and learn in abstractions, and think in terms of meta-representations, etc., a human is no more a pure tabula rasa than an ant. Where you find humans, feral or no, you will find basic human dispositions, from birth, toward concepts like empathy, expectations of reciprocity, etc.

Moral primitives - not specific convictions in particular social contexts like “it’s not polite to tease people who are overweight for being overweight”, but basic moral instincts like sympathy and fairness – are, by all measures we have, and the weight of the evidence here gets heavier by the year, physiological.

Christians are wont to impose their superstitions on these kinds of features of humanity, and so they do. But the correction is NOT that the human mind at birth is some completely neutral, empty tabula rasa. Rather the correction is that “natural law” is a religious superstition that has masked, delayed and avoided an objective and responsible inquiry into man’s nature, a nature which we increasingly recognize through science to be heavily informed by a “moral instinct” (which is no more voluntarily or plastic than an ant’s cognitive patterning), combined with a stupendously powerful metarepresentational layer, with high plasticity on top.

Just to be clear, there are vast expanses of the mind that are “blank”, or otherwise amenable to rewiring and reconfiguring through experience and learning. But it’s a mistake as far off as those who buy the “natural law” superstition in the other direction to suppose humans are PURELY blank slates at birth.

We are born disposed to certain low-level, universal moral instincts. This is the legacy of our evolutionary history, what we have inherited through millions of years of primate development. If you read primatologist Frans de Waal, for example, you can see in his work the observations of primates as similarly disposed by their nature toward gregariousness, empathy and reciprocity, for example. We’re primates, and that’s a primate thing, a primate moral grammar we share with other humans, and to some more fundamental extent, all primates.

There are a couple of dozen of “feral children”. These poor beings grew up in a wild environment, without human companionship. As such, during their formative years they were not exposed to languages, and so they never learned to communicate. They are unable to learn to speak. They are essentially wild animals in a human form.

But even if that’s the view we take, it doesn’t make a human a “tabula rasa”. Chimps are social creatures too, and thereby have a “moral instinct” of their own, as well. These basic impulses are the foundations of the social and moral particulars upon which are build discrete moral frameworks, whether they be chimp social conventions and practices, or human social conventions and practices.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Spock:

So to keep talking about some “pre-wired” morality (which these children clearly lack) is a biological absurdity.

Odd, odd, odd. This goes right against everything I have read and understand from biology and biologists. Who would you cite in support of this (to me, extremely curious) view? Books and articles on this I keep up with contradict this. The work of scholars like Joshua Greene, Johnathan Haidt, Steven Pinker and Marc Hauser (yes, despite his recent mischief at Harvard), and Donald E. Brown, to name a quick list off the top of my head of thought leaders on this question across a variety of disciplines.

Our moral norms are a learned behavior.

To some extent, this is unquestionably true. But there’s a transcendental problem, there. To be able to “morally learn” is to presume a basic “moral grammar” or “moral disposition”, or more generally, a “core morality” that bootstraps our capability to learn. By all observations, humans have this capacity from birth, or before they are able to learn (via language). Humans are “linguistic” by nature, from birth, in a way that chimps are not. A chimp can try and be trained in the most determined fashion to speak and use human-like language, but chimps are not pysiologically and psychologically equipped for this, by nature. They have a good measure of plasticity in their brains, especially compared to, say, an ant, but their starting point is not ‘linguistic’ in the way human nature is ‘linguistic’.

Same thing with morality. Chimps have a “moral instinct”, which is different than ours. We have a moral instinct that informs us from birth, and predisposes us in certain directions, contra the “tabula rasa”/neutral view.

It is one thing to keep on believing all sorts of “angels” and “demons” - after all these alleged beings cannot be detected, and as such cannot be proven or disproven. It is a completely different ballgame to believe what has been shown to be false - like this ridiculous concept of “natural law - inscribed unto the human heart”. To keep on believing nonsense like this marks the believer as a fully irrational person. It is a sad thing that so many of the posters around here keep on believing these and other assorted nonsense, and when they are told about their error, they simply close their ears.

The problem is not nearly so easily solved as that. You don’t get Christianity nearly the credit for the durability and craftiness of its superstitions. It’s precisely because humans have a moral instinct, as a matter of pure biology and evolution, that they embrace and remain seduced by the “natural law” concept. If what you were saying was true, this would be easily shown. But it isn’t. Humans look like they have some “law written unto their hearts”, to humans who are inclined toward anthropocentric and teleological explanations, which is pretty much all humans who aren’t trying to be rigorously scientific.

But it’s a deceiving appearance, and that’s why the ‘natural law’ superstition works so well. Humans are predisposed in some ways; babies are distressed at witnessing gratuitous suffering and violence being inflicted on others, far before they are able to process language at all, let alone use language to rationalized a learned moral lesson via that language faculty. Because these same humans are just by nature fantastically biased against non-telic explanations, they are credulous and lazy in the answers they embrace — God did this.

-TS

 

[fred_conty]

The euphemism “the natural law, which is inscribed unto every human heart” is sheer nonsense. What it implies is that humans are born with a “natural set of do’s and don’t’s”, or a “natural moral guide”. Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate. Our brain is not “preformatted” like the neural system of insects. It is our greatest strength that we are able to learn. We do have an affinity to learn languages, and via the languages we learn everything else.

There are a couple of dozen of “feral children”. These poor beings grew up in a wild environment, without human companionship. As such, during their formative years they were not exposed to languages, and so they never learned to communicate. They are unable to learn to speak. They are essentially wild animals in a human form.

So to keep talking about some “pre-wired” morality (which these children clearly lack) is a biological absurdity. Our moral norms are a learned behavior. It is one thing to keep on believing all sorts of “angels” and “demons” - after all these alleged beings cannot be detected, and as such cannot be proven or disproven. It is a completely different ballgame to believe what has been shown to be false - like this ridiculous concept of “natural law - inscribed unto the human heart”. To keep on believing nonsense like this marks the believer as a fully irrational person. It is a sad thing that so many of the posters around here keep on believing these and other assorted nonsense, and when they are told about their error, they simply close their ears.

If you don’t believe in a natural law, and you don’t believe in religion, then YOU don’t have any governor for your actions. Then that means YOU are completely out of control.

Just a thought. What do you think?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

But it’s a deceiving appearance, and that’s why the ‘natural law’ superstition works so well. Humans are predisposed in some ways; babies are distressed at witnessing gratuitous suffering and violence being inflicted on others, far before they are able to process language at all, let alone use language to rationalized a learned moral lesson via that language faculty. Because these same humans are just by nature fantastically biased against non-telic explanations, they are credulous and lazy in the answers they embrace — God did this.

Blah, blah, blah. You have become so predictable and tedious in your smears against Christians.

And exactly how do you know there is no God behind everything?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Touchstone: You don’t get Christianity nearly the credit for the durability and craftiness of its superstitions.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Fieuline]

Of course biology has proven that humans are born “tabula rasa”, a clean slate. Our brain is not “preformatted” like the neural system of insects. It is our greatest strength that we are able to learn. We do have an affinity to learn languages, and via the languages we learn everything else.

Hey Spock ^^

I agree that we more or less have a clean slate in terms of knowledge. To claim we know absolutely nothing before we learn language, however, is absurd because it suggests language arrives ex nihilo when it is in fact predicated on our perceptions of the real world, which is in turn predicated on a mechanism capable of observing and differentiating the real world. Since such a mechanism must precede any knowledge in the same way a thing to be written on precedes any writing, intrinsic knowledge is epistemologically necessary whatever biology has found.

What is language, after all? Language is a system of abstract thought that attaches signs and series of signs to their antecedents in the real world. “A tree is green” communicates prior knowledge about the ontological reality of a plant the speaker has perceived. As this demonstrates, language itself is predicated on prior knowledge. That knowledge is extrinsic knowledge. We gather extrinsic knowledge by our senses, but the senses would be nonsense without a brain of some kind to observe and derive information from the senses. That brain must be constrained by certain contours of thought: for example for “that is green” to make any sense, one must first conceive, even if subconsciously, that to be green is a unique state of being different from those beings that are not green. In other words, the law of identity ( A = A ) is implicit in the thinking even of a small baby. This is intrinsic knowledge.

Since intrinsic knowledge of logic is necessary to extrinsic knowledge, we see that not all intrinsic knowledge is out even in a tabula rasa system. The question, then, is whether moral law is part of the deposit of intrinsic knowledge, which is less a question of biology than of anthropology. Clearly, Catholics don’t think the entirety of moral law is intrinsic as they maintain that catechesis is necessary. Whether the vast masses of people are born with a sense that there is such a thing as right and there is such a thing as wrong, however, is another question entirely.

Blah, blah, blah. You have become so predictable and tedious in your smears against Christians.

Aww )= Be nice <3 Smile ^w^

 

[You]

…they are credulous and lazy in the answers they embrace — God did this.

-TS

All those long posts and you conclude with the same argument I have heard from 12 year olds, 17 year olds, guys with beer in heavy metal pub. But none of them yet has a better solution.:dts:

 

[Acapiteadcalcem]

Because these same humans are just by nature fantastically biased against non-telic explanations, they are credulous and lazy in the answers they embrace — God did this

Hi Touchstone;
I was wondering if you could tell me where you are getting your understanding from of natural law, because it doesn’t really reflect my understanding. What are your primary sources? I don’t mean straw man caricatures like the ones we see in this blog, but going back to the originators of natural law argument, which sources are you relying on? Perhaps if we start with the sources we might have a more meaningful dialogue.

I’d also be interested to see what your justification is for refering to natural law as a ‘superstition’. That’s quite a big claim. But if you have documentary evidence for this, can you share it with us? I would imagaine that such documentary evidence would include direct quotes from the original thinkers behind natural law, or from some official Church document, which clearly shows a link between superstition and natural law. Can you provide this documentary evidence? You talk a lot about being scientific and rational, and I totally agree with you; we have to face the facts in a rational way. So let’s do that: let’s critically examine your documentary evidence because everything in your blog up to this point is just bare assertion (and I’m sure you’ll agree that would not pass muster in any scientific discipline). Let’s get some academic rigor into the argument…if you in fact can. I’d be very happy to have that conversation with you.

Cheers.

 

[Spock]

What an odd post to read from you. I don’t know which feral children you are referring to – from what I recall, there have only been a few dozen cases to look at, all or nearly all individual cases, which makes any social inferences problematic – but while humans have a vast capacity for “cognitive plasticity”, the ability to learn and learn in abstractions, and think in terms of meta-representations, etc., a human is no more a pure tabula rasa than an ant.

I think we have a misunderstanding. Obviously humans are not “completely empty” even at birth. We are “imbued” with the necessary reflexes, the ability to breathe, to eat, etc. What we do not have is the innate ability to speak, to walk, and zillions of learned abilities and traits. We do not have the inborn ability to read, to conceptualize, to make conscious decisions, after all these activities require a much more complex brain than what a newborn has. However, we have the inborn ability to learn - which is the most important trait of all. Of course this ability varies from individual to individual.

Where you find humans, feral or no, you will find basic human dispositions, from birth, toward concepts like empathy, expectations of reciprocity, etc.

I don’t think so. Children are inherently selfish. We have to train them that sharing is good. Children are also inherently cruel - probably because they lack the ability to “put themselves into the other person’s shoes”. There are pschopaths and sociopatchs, without any empathy. I don’t think it is true that those “human monsters” are really “sweet, loving persons” on the inside, they just suppress it for whatever reason.

As a summary, I merely argue that humans learn a moral code, and do not have it as an inborn ability.

 

[sw85]

Spock, please see my earlier post:

You are conflating natural law with synderesis, which is simply the intuitive/instinctive grasp of natural law.

What is meant, I believe, when it’s said that natural law is inscribed on the human heart is that it irrevocably arises from man’s nature. And that’s all that natural law really is: “natural” refers to “consistent with human nature.” It simply asserts that goodness consists in using our faculties in a manner consistent with their respective telos’. What about this is even remotely controversial?

Whether or not people are “blank slates” in terms of morality doesn’t really matter here. Again, that the natural law is inscribed on our hearts simply means that it arises from our nature – not that we are born with full and innate knowledge of it.

I had to learn all the mathematical truths I know, too… does that mean they are arbitrary with no basis in objective reality?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I don’t think so. Children are inherently selfish. We have to train them that sharing is good. Children are also inherently cruel - probably because they lack the ability to “put themselves into the other person’s shoes”.

I got quite a different impression from a recent Nova program about becoming human. The program illustrated how human infants, more so than any other primates, are attuned to reading and relating to others’ facial expressions and emotions. This is because humans are more likely to share parenting than say chimpanzees. So a human child needs to relate to a wider group of adults - not just their mothers.

There are pschopaths and sociopatchs, without any empathy. I don’t think it is true that those “human monsters” are really “sweet, loving persons” on the inside, they just suppress it for whatever reason.

As a summary, I merely argue that humans learn a moral code, and do not have it as an inborn ability.

This is a distinction without a difference. To you the only thing you will call natural law is something that was demonstrably present at birth. Others here have been trying to explain that natural law is by definition something that is acquired through the application of reason. You change the definition of natural law to suit your premise. Until you and the others here can agree on the definition of natural law, then any debate on the substance of the issue is pointless. Of course anyone is free to define terms however they wish, as long as they don’t claim those terms are equivalent to someone else’s usage of those same terms.

 

[Newbie2]

I remember hearing that a kitten blindfolded for the first few days of its life will never see for the rest of its life even though its eyes are perfect. .

You may have heard it, but it’s not true.

A fact brought to you from your friendly CAF veterinarian.

No, we are inclined towards **evil **because we are born with original sin. Thus we have to battle the devil our whole lives.

True, but there is a part of us that seeks the good as well, otherwise we’d be lost.

I found he title of this thread curious. Why would we DROP a core matter of our faith? Just because an anonymous forumite says we should do so, lol?

What does it matter to this forumite, I ask myself, if we believe in natural law or not? Perhaps it was just a provocative title to get people to discuss the notion…hey, it worked…I posted.

 

[Spock]

Whether or not people are “blank slates” in terms of morality doesn’t really matter here.

Oh, yes it does. Some poster brings up the “natural law” every time a sexual question is presented.

Again, that the natural law is inscribed on our hearts simply means that it arises from our nature – not that we are born with full and innate knowledge of it.

If that is the case then the phrase is even dumber than I thought. Where does our “nature” come from? Is it biologically determined? Is it something we gain via learning? Is it something that God imposed on us? What has the “nature” of a serial killer have in common with the “nature” of Gandhi?

What you say simply pushes the question back: “what is our nature”? And how does the proposition that “if two people voluntarily engage in a sexual activity, which precludes the possibility of pregnancy” goes against the “natural law”?

I had to learn all the mathematical truths I know, too… does that mean they are arbitrary with no basis in objective reality?

All the mathematical “truths” are relative and they are contingent upon the selected axioms. The axioms were chosen because those particular ones allowed the modeling of physical reality quite well. But we could chose other axioms, and in that system the mathematical “truths” you learned simply would not hold.