What evidence is there for the natural moral law?

[Pallas_Athene]

Yes, and in Russian Roulette, the fact that the number of loaded chambers in the gun is “miniscule indeed” must mean that getting shot in the head is inconsequential to the act of pulling the trigger.

The fact that you compare recreational sex to Russian roulette tells us everything about your level of irrationality.

And this says nothing of the fact that the “number of sexual encounters” of a “recreational” nature have resulted in the “miniscule” number of 1.338 billion abortions worldwide since 1980. Yes, procreation or at least terminating it is, indeed, a miniscule part of having sex. That’s 1,338,000,000 lives ended. Fun ain’t it?

Has anyone counted it? How does it compare to the number a zygotes which failed to implant into the uterus wall? By the way, you chose an incorrect screen name. It should be “Mr. DeRail”. Nothing like changing the subject when you are unable to give a reasoned response - which is “always”.

By the way, have you counted the number of unwanted pregnancies (and their terminations) when the couple practiced “BJ” or “HJ” or “TJ”?

 

[Peter_Plato]

The fact that you compare recreational sex to Russian roulette tells us everything about your level of irrationality.

The fact that you don’t understand a parallel example AND that you think quantity directly determines value is even more telling.

Has anyone counted it?

Does anyone need to? Are you denying that millions of abortions due to “recreational sex” are performed every year? Or that the attitude of sex as recreation is the primary cause of millions of human beings being “terminated" every year?

How does it compare to the number a zygotes which failed to implant into the uterus wall?

Zygotes failing to implant is not a “moral act” on the part of any human being. A comparison would be irrelevant/

By the way, you chose an incorrect screen name. It should be “Mr. DeRail”. Nothing like changing the subject when you are unable to give a reasoned response - which is “always”.

By the way, have you counted the number of unwanted pregnancies (and their terminations) when the couple practiced “BJ” or “HJ” or “TJ”?

“DeRail” as in your abject failure to properly or adequately deal with any of my objections to your points.

Typical response – don’t actually address points being made, resort to ad hominem.

Obviously your “train” of thought is going nowhere, so how can it possibly derail?

 

[Peter_Plato]

The fact that you compare recreational sex to Russian roulette tells us everything about your level of irrationality.

I’m not so sure that a manual vacuum aspiration, suction curettage or dilation and curettage (D & C) as the end “result” of recreational sex is that much different from taking a bullet through the brain as the end result of Russian Roulette – at least not for the victim.

So if the “chance” of someone getting dismembered alive sometime after casual sex and as the inevitable outcome of the “game” being played is analogous to the end result of someone getting their brains blown out after Russian Roulette, then the comparison is quite rational.

Now, the mere fact that you don’t like the analogy is quite a different issue to whether it is logically defensible or irrational.

Merely gesturing at “levels of irrationality” doesn’t demonstrate anything at all, except that you ran your own cars off the rail and left them to lie in a hideously inexplicable heap.

 

[Peter_Plato]

My sincere apologies, Pallas Athene. I just checked an online dictionary and it appears you are correct on the word “rational.”

rational
*adjective /ˈræʃənəl/ *
› based on and aligned to the judgments, opinions, beliefs and emotional states of Pallas Athene. Not affected by principles of logic or reason.
a “rational” decision

Apparently, then, you are correct and rational “by definition.” Who’d have thunk it?

 

[Pallas_Athene]

The fact that you don’t understand a parallel example AND that you think quantity directly determines value is even more telling.

Well, yes. It should tell you that I am a rational thinker, who understands that Russian roulette is an idiotic “game”, and as such to use it as an analogy is - well, let’s be gentle here - not “smart”. (I have to be gentle, since you don’t know what “ad hominem” is, as proven at the end of your post. I suggest you look it up, lest you wish to embarrass yourself further. Hint: to call someone a drooling idiot is NOT an “ad hominem” (short for “argumentum ad hominem”), it is just an expression of an opinion.)

Now a valid analogy would be to consider the thousands of traffic accidents (every day) due to the desire of people who wish to use automobiles to get from A to B. Using an automobile carries certain dangers, both to themselves and to others. Yet, people consider the benefits worth the risk. Of course they could all switch to horses or walk to their destination.

What can we do in the current situation? According to your kind of “reasoning” we all should drop the habit of using cars, because of the undesirable side effect of traffic accidents (where real people get maimed or die). The rational approach, of course, is to build better cars, which will protect against the unwanted outcomes. The analogy is not 100% perfect. We do not have the technology (as of today) to make cars 100% accident-proof. On the other hand, we CAN make recreational sex perfectly safe from unwanted conceptions. Do you support this method? And just like with traveling, people are willing to accept the unwanted side effect of having sex. In their eyes the benefits are worth the risk.

You, on the other hand are very welcome to sell your car and switch to walking; also you are free to practice your abstinence. I will not call you an “immoral” being. Since your possible abstinence does not hurt anyone, it is none of my business to pass a value judgment about your behavior. If only this kind of “permissiveness” would be practiced by you… but that is probably too much to hope for.

Does anyone need to?

Yes. You quoted a number, now you need to prove it - according to the forum rules. Or do the forum rules apply only to others?

Or that the attitude of sex as recreation is the primary cause of millions of human beings being “terminated" every year?

Yes, I deny that. You cannot blame the method when it’s failure results in some undesirable outcome. That would be akin to blame the traffic by vehicles for the unwanted traffic accidents.

Zygotes failing to implant is not a “moral act” on the part of any human being. A comparison would be irrelevant

So what? According to your terminology it is still the “premature death” of far more numerous “human beings” then the ones terminated by abortions. When people perish in natural disasters (where no moral acts were involved), we mourn their demise - precisely because they are “real” human beings, not just a one-cell organisms. The fact that no one cares about the flushed out zygotes is a loud and clear indication that people do NOT really consider these cells to be “human beings”. The word “hypocrisy” comes to mind…

 

[Rau]

I don’t think that we have to talk past each other. I’d assume that you’d have reasons for acting morally which wouldn’t require any belief in God. And good reasons for believing something to be immoral without recourse to anything divine. And those reason. I would suggest, would be the same as mine.

That’s because we have common ground, our assessments of morality will sometimes overlap, not because God can be excluded. As we know, I will also come to different conclusions.

 

[Elf01]

Recreational sex is immoral if…

1. It involves cheating.
2. It is with someone who you know wants to be more, but that it not what you want. You also know that having sex with this person will get their hopes up.
3. You run the risk of passing on an STD. Even if you use a condom I don’t think that the risk would be acceptable.

I think that you might agree that recreational sex is wrong in these circumstances.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

1. It involves cheating.
2. It is with someone who you know wants to be more, but that it not what you want. You also know that having sex with this person will get their hopes up.
3. You run the risk of passing on an STD. Even if you use a condom I don’t think that the risk would be acceptable.

I think that you might agree that recreational sex is wrong in these circumstances.

Well said… In other words full disclosure and mutual agreement. And this would be true in any case, not just in recreational sex.

 

[Bradski]

Hey, Bradski, There’s your “harm.”

OK, maybe there is flicker of understanding for my position. There’s no need to put harm in scare quotes. If you consider it harm (and most would) then that is reason enough to suggest that it is wrong. However…it is wrong IF it leads to harm. Not simply because harm can come from it.

In the same way that drinking whisky is not wrong BECAUSE it can lead to family break-ups, alcoholism, severe medical problems etc, it is wrong IF it results in those things.

Recreational sex is not immoral BECAUSE of any problem you’d care to list. It is wrong IF it leads to any problem you’d care to list. Note that Elf below lists a few problems that he associates with recreational sex but he precedes it by my quote: ‘Recreational sex is immoral IF…’.

(Recreational sex would be wrong if)…

1. It involves cheating.
2. It is with someone who you know wants to be more, but that it not what you want. You also know that having sex with this person will get their hopes up.
3. You run the risk of passing on an STD. Even if you use a condom I don’t think that the risk would be acceptable.

I think that you might agree that recreational sex is wrong in these circumstances.

As regards the first example, IF it involves cheating, then yes, I’d agree. The second example could be classed as cheating – taking advantage of someone’s emotional state, so again IF that is the case then I might agree that it could be immoral. The third? We’ll, if neither partner had an STD in the first instance, then there would be zero risk of passing one on. So I’m discounting that. In that case, wouldn’t you?

That’s because we have common ground, our assessments of morality will sometimes overlap, not because God can be excluded. As we know, I will also come to different conclusions.

There would be very few occasions when that would happen because I believe we both use the same criteria for discerning right from wrong.

 

[Rau]

OK, maybe there is flicker of understanding for my position. There’s no need to put harm in scare quotes. If you consider it harm (and most would) then that is reason enough to suggest that it is wrong. However…it is wrong IF it leads to harm. Not simply because harm can come from it.

In the same way that drinking whisky is not wrong BECAUSE it can lead to family break-ups, alcoholism, severe medical problems etc, it is wrong IF it results in those things.

Recreational sex is not immoral BECAUSE of any problem you’d care to list. It is wrong IF it leads to any problem you’d care to list. Note that Elf below lists a few problems that he associates with recreational sex but he precedes it by my quote: ‘Recreational sex is immoral IF…’.

As regards the first example, IF it involves cheating, then yes, I’d agree. The second example could be classed as cheating – taking advantage of someone’s emotional state, so again IF that is the case then I might agree that it could be immoral. The third? We’ll, if neither partner had an STD in the first instance, then there would be zero risk of passing one on. So I’m discounting that. In that case, wouldn’t you?

There would be very few occasions when that would happen because I believe we both use the same criteria for discerning right from wrong.

Your concept of “harm” is narrower than mine, so no, it will happen.

Separately, you also seem to require that the harm must be a certainty. How is risk incorporated in your thinking?

 

[Bradski]

Your concept of “harm” is narrower than mine, so no, it will happen.

Separately, you also seem to require that the harm must be a certainty. How is risk incorporated in your thinking?

Not a certainty, no. But like anything, the greater the potential harm, the more care one should take. If you meet a girl for the first time, then having unprotected sex with her entails some risk. If you’ve been together for a number of years and both of you have been faithful, then sex just for the fun of it would be no problem.

 

[Rau]

Not a certainty, no. But like anything, the greater the potential harm, the more care one should take. If you meet a girl for the first time, then having unprotected sex with her entails some risk. If you’ve been together for a number of years and both of you have been faithful, then sex just for the fun of it would be no problem.

The “just for fun” aspect seems to be irrelevant isn’t it?

 

[Bradski]

The “just for fun” aspect seems to be irrelevant isn’t it?

Not sure what you mean here…

 

[Rau]

Not sure what you mean here…

I mean why do you qualify the sex as “just for fun”. How would that qualification have any bearing on the morality of the act??

 

[Bradski]

I mean why do you qualify the sex as “just for fun”. How would that qualification have any bearing on the morality of the act??

Well, some people seem to think it’s immoral in itself. If it causes no harm, it cannot be so.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

I mean why do you qualify the sex as “just for fun”. How would that qualification have any bearing on the morality of the act??

There is no moral aspect of an act which does no harm to anyone; such acts are “amoral” (strange coincidence to: amor, amoris, masculinum ).

The interesting part is this: all that hoopla about abortions or venereal diseases. etc. (as arguments) are just “red herring” (attempt to divert into irrelevancies). Even if there can be no chance of conception, if there is no chance of VD, or no harm done to anyone, the practice of recreational sex would still be considered either intrinsically disordered or mortal sin. Which is fine for the believers, who hold that view. The problem only happens when they try to use those types of arguments to convince the non-religious ones, or those whose religious views are different.

 

[Rau]

Well, some people seem to think it’s immoral in itself. If it causes no harm, it cannot be so.

Separate issues. The intention of “enjoyment” is not a problem in any system I know of. But not all systems of morality limit themselves to consideration of “harm” in the sense you mean it (as discussed).

 

[Rau]

There is no moral aspect of an act which does no harm to anyone; such acts are “amoral” (strange coincidence to: amor, amoris, masculinum ).

The interesting part is this: all that hoopla about abortions or venereal diseases. etc. (as arguments) are just “red herring” (attempt to divert into irrelevancies). Even if there can be no chance of conception, if there is no chance of VD, or no harm done to anyone, the practice of recreational sex would still be considered either intrinsically disordered or mortal sin. Which is fine for the believers, who hold that view. The problem only happens when they try to use those types of arguments to convince the non-religious ones, or those whose religious views are different.

Yes, that’s why Christ explained the reason that Moses allowed divorce. He said “Moses allowed you (meaning the people of the time) to divorce because you were unteachable”.

I think by recreational sex, you actually mean sex with other than a spouse, or contracepted sex, don’t you?

 

[Bradski]

I think by recreational sex, you actually mean sex with other than a spouse, or contracepted sex, don’t you?

Personally, I mean sex with anyone at all (including oneself) purely for the enjoyment of it.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Yes, that’s why Christ explained the reason that Moses allowed divorce. He said “Moses allowed you (meaning the people of the time) to divorce because you were unteachable”.

This is new to me. Would you show me the chapter and verse? Sheer curiosity on my part.

I think by recreational sex, you actually mean sex with other than a spouse, or contracepted sex, don’t you?

Bradski said it perfectly. Almost nothing to add to it. One minor remark: when there is a partner (or partners) he or she (or they) all must be willing (consenting) participant(s). It looks like that this “disclaimer” needs to be added each and every time.

Pretty boring, but necessary. Otherwise some poor nincompoop will come up with some nonsense that “two would be criminals agree to rob a bank” and then points out that this agreement (consent) does not lend legitimacy to a bank robbery. Hard to imagine, but such idiocy is professed by some.