What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[Aloysium]

. . . If you never experienced all those deliciously “sinful” sexual practices, which have nothing to do with procreation, but everything to do with pure, unadulterated pleasure, obviously you will not miss them. But you still miss out on them. And if you have tried them, and now you feel ashamed for it, then you suffer needlessly. If there would be an absolute, irrefutable evidence that the church’s assertions are correct, that would make a difference. But there is none. . . Evil is not the “privation of good”, it is a volitional, malicious act to inflict some gratuitous harm on someone. If you simply pursue what you think is “right”, then it is none of our business, but we can still pity you for wasting your time on meaningless rituals.

You have derailed your own thread with matters far more interesting and probably the main issue behind the pretense of a discussion on “scientific method”.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I accept that you don’t. But that is neither here nor there. If you never experienced all those deliciously “sinful” sexual practices, which have nothing to do with procreation, but everything to do with pure, unadulterated pleasure, obviously you will not miss them. But you still miss out on them. And if you have tried them, and now you feel ashamed for it, then you suffer needlessly. If there would be an absolute, irrefutable evidence that the church’s assertions are correct, that would make a difference. But there is none.

Now, you got that one right! This is exactly the point. Evil is not the “privation of good”, it is a volitional, malicious act to inflict some gratuitous harm on someone. If you simply pursue what you think is “right”, then it is none of our business, but we can still pity you for wasting your time on meaningless rituals.

All of this assumes there is nothing meaningful except pure, unadulterated pleasure. The problem, however, is that many of us have walked the path of pure unadulterated pleasure and know from intimate and prolonged experience that that particular path leads to a dread end, both literally and figuratively.

Your error may be in assuming that your “place” on that path allows you some kind of privileged knowledge concerning the whole path and where it leads. Perhaps it does as far as you are aware. Unfortunately, you may discover that further along the path things may take a literal turn for the worse and the appearances of things, by which you deny their substance, may begin to show their true nature. Hopefully, that will come at a time when it won’t be too late for you to change course.

Evidence is only as good as the significance that can be made of it - in other words, dependent wholly upon the capacity of the knower to make heads or tails of it. The fact that you cannot see the significance of particular pieces of evidence does not mean they have none.

It may give you great comfort to think you are enjoying pleasure while doing no harm, but the “unfortunate” are denying themselves such indulgences; however, a little pleasure, like a little learning, may be a dangerous thing. The antidote for both may be to drink deeper from the well. Unfortunately, in both cases, drinking deeper is fraught with peril if you have no solid footing which can serve to prevent you from falling headlong into the abyss.

 

[cisco_1]

Science is, or at least should be, never supportive of anything supernatural, and that includes the denial that there is something beyond the natural world.

Your second paragraph looks dangerously close to the Intelligent Design “theory”. Being new on this forum, you might not know that there is currently a thread running on the topic of ID.

Atheism is a greater claim of supernatural than any theistic religion in my eyes. You said it yourself: “denial that there is something beyond the natural world” and Atheism is just that.

This universe has systems, language and order. These 3 factors can not just come into existence with out any intelligent intervention… Take a look at a car, this car was engineered together by numbers first. Engineers created the math so that the functions of this car is stable, they then use several parts (metal, plastic, etc), created the engine and every single thing just for this car to run and used well. If i said, there is no evidence of anybody ever making *this car, suggesting that it just made itself… isn’t that a supernatural claim? Until the time Atheism shows that Language, Order, and systems can just come into existence on it’s own (just a common example to show it’s possibility) then they are suggesting an unnatural claim. If it is not viewed in nature, ever! then that fits as supernatural.

 

[cisco_1]

Those people at Jonestown drank poison knowing full well what it was. First they fed it to their children, watched them die, and then drank it themselves. Maybe you wish to classify them as “fanatics”, but they were simple, everyday people who “swallowed” the teaching of their “spiritual leader”. So don’t underestimate the gullibility of people.

What caused the beliefs of these people at Jonestown? How did they come to believe it? Then compare that to the disciples of early AD… You see, you claim to be reading but you are not… you have not taken in consideration the several factors involving the followers of Jesus. 1 being Jews and 2 the claim of being God. You can’t just make people believe you are a god and can come back to life with out any visible evidence. The examples you’ve stated such as Jonestown is not based on any high extraordinary claims they are all based on corrupting what people already believed in… giving it false insights/info or in short twisting their own ideals and doctrines. Creating believers with the use of their past religious dogma does not require any hard extraordinary evidence, just good word play. The belief of Jesus had no solid background other than Messianic prophesies and again, as stated the Jews had a much different concept of their Messiah so if Jesus never rose from the dead his whole legacy would have ended.

Again, you are not thinking on the value of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence and you are simplying making the belief of people coming back from a horrible death in the same line of scripture/dogma distorting which logically wrong.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

What caused the beliefs of these people at Jonestown? How did they come to believe it? Then compare that to the disciples of early AD… You see, you claim to be reading but you are not… you have not taken in consideration the several factors involving the followers of Jesus. 1 being Jews and 2 the claim of being God. You can’t just make people believe you are a god and can come back to life with out any visible evidence. The examples you’ve stated such as Jonestown is not based on any high extraordinary claims they are all based on corrupting what people already believed in… giving it false insights/info or in short twisting their own ideals and doctrines. Creating believers with the use of their past religious dogma does not require any hard extraordinary evidence, just good word play. The belief of Jesus had no solid background other than Messianic prophesies and again, as stated the Jews had a much different concept of their Messiah so if Jesus never rose from the dead his whole legacy would have ended.

.

Not only that but the Jonestown people were coerced into taking the poison. Anyone who tried to flee was shot. The maniac Jones, who ran that community, was something like a Charles Manson, he had a hypnotic personality and instilled fear into his followers. They may have been gullible, but he was a powerful despot,and with henchmen.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Since God never points out our temporal mistakes, how could we learn from them?

Please, get real. There is nothing in performing a “non-procreative” act of sex which would “hurt” anyone. There are all those victimless crimes, which are considered “sinful acts”. If the church would like to be taken seriously, it should quickly re-classify those as “no one else’s business”.

Herein lies the problem.

Since at least Boethius – and before him Augustine, Justin Martyr, Aristotle and Plato – the “soul” of a human being was presumed to have three discrete aspects - the appetitive, the sensitive and the intellective or spiritual. Boethius and the other Christian writers have taken great pains to point out that the chief harm of sin is in the blinding and scouring of the higher faculties to the “benefit” of the lower.

Certainly, if you suppose human beings are nothing but sensory or appetitive beings with no gain to be had by developing the higher orders or faculties relative to being human, then you might have an argument that indiscriminate acts of “sex” are harmless. However, you seem to be a case study against your own thesis.

The fact that you cannot “see” or apprehend any higher point to existence beyond sensory gratification might mean, essentially, that you have become incapable of recognizing much beyond “pleasure” itself, as an end or purpose.

If merely satisfying appetite (vegetative) or pleasure (sensitive) were sufficient to make a human being fully human (and realizing happiness or beatitude) then there might not be any personal harm at stake by engaging in the indiscriminate pursuit of pleasure. However, if truth or goodness are legitimate ends for higher human faculties – and unregulated pursuit of pleasure hampers or seriously delimits proper functioning of those higher faculties – then irreparable harm may be done to oneself in the pursuit of the higher good of eudaemonia or happiness.

The victimless crimes may not be victimless, unless you deliberately exclude yourself from the count.

Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Please, get real. There is nothing in performing a “non-procreative” act of sex which would “hurt” anyone. There are all those victimless crimes, which are considered “sinful acts”. If the church would like to be taken seriously, it should quickly re-classify those as “no one else’s business”.

This is the libertarian creed.

The idea that victimless sin exists is preposterous. By sinning we victimize ourselves first and foremost. By victimizing ourselves we victimize others along with ourselves, since we diminish our integrity as human beings and this taints all our relationships; for when we lower our integrity we lower our ability to relate humanly to others.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Since God never points out our temporal mistakes, how could we learn from them?

Another way of looking at this is that God does not “point out” our mistakes in any obvious way because we are to learn from them. This gets back to the point I made in Post #379.

We are to make of ourselves what we will be judged by. We are completely responsible for our own choices because God fully underwrites the enterprise of our becoming by providing all that we need to succeed. The “how” is a given, the “what” is up to us.

It is in our diligence in uncovering and using the treasures “buried in the field” that we become whatever we make of ourselves. If “what” we uniquely make of ourselves is unfit for living on eternally, that is because we did not make full use of our given “talents.” Giving up or burying them is not a sufficient excuse because God’s help is always available as a free gift called grace.

If we choose to underrate or not take advantage of the free gift, that is our problem. If we expect God to act in particular way that makes us inordinately dependent or in order to find God blameworthy for our shortcomings, neither does that get us off the hook.

In short, God does not point out our temporal mistakes in any obvious way because we are to ever more finely develop our own capacity to detect our mistakes. By doing so we become more fully human, alive, capable and our true “selves."

Do you follow your children everywhere and continually “point out” their mistakes? I suspect that after a time they would find you unbearable.

 

[Hee_Zen]

The victimless crimes may not be victimless, unless you deliberately exclude yourself from the count.

Remember the movie: “Whose life is it anyway”? When you observe those people (mostly in the Philippines) who deliberately wish to be crucified to “emulate” Christ’s passion, what is your reaction to that? Mine is simple: “I feel pity for the poor suckers, but I respect their desire”. Whatever they do to their own body, it is their own business. And I see absolutely no problem in pursuing a little harmless fun with an adult, responsible and consenting partner. No, it does not hurt me in any way, and even if it did, it is not your business.

I remember a nice joke about the subject:

An old woman calls the police and logs a complaint about the couple living across the street. She says that their “sinful” sexual practices are disturbing for her, and wishes the police to do something about it. Two officers come to investigate. They look at the opposing apartment, but they see nothing at all. The old woman says: “Of course you don’t see it from there!”. She then climbs on the top of the wardrobe, grabs the curtain rod and leans dangerously to the side… and says: “come up here and you will see their disgusting practices”.
I am aware that you are “commanded” to “help” out, to point out the mistakes of others… it is called “tough love”. But it also reminds me of a joke:

The boy scout goes home and his father asks him: “did you do any good deeds today”? He replies: “yes, I did, father. I and my 5 friends helped an old man cross the street!”. The father says: “That is very nice of you, but why did you need your friends to help”? And the kid answers, “because the old geezer did not want to cross the street!”
I hope you will get the point: “do not stick your nose where it does not belong”.

=========================================================

Another way of looking at this is that God does not “point out” our mistakes in any obvious way because we are to learn from them.

What a baloney! Many of those “so called” mistakes carry no negative consequences, so there is no negative feedback. Any good teacher gives both positive and negative feedback to help the students to learn from their actions.

 

[Peter_Plato]

What a baloney! Many of those “so called” mistakes carry no negative consequences, so there is no negative feedback. Any good teacher gives both positive and negative feedback to help the students to learn from their actions.

Not necessarily and not necessarily immediately.

It all depends on the individual student’s needs and aptitudes, the lesson to be learned, the depth at which it needs to be learned and the end goals or outcomes in terms of the makeup of the student in need of the learning.

You have an apparently superficial view of teaching and learning.

Even assuming learning is essentially the same as behavioural training, it is not true that continuous reinforcement is as effective as variable ratio or variable interval reinforcement over the long term.

How many years, by the way, have you been an educator?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Remember the movie: “Whose life is it anyway”? When you observe those people (mostly in the Philippines) who deliberately wish to be crucified to “emulate” Christ’s passion, what is your reaction to that? Mine is simple: “I feel pity for the poor suckers, but I respect their desire”. Whatever they do to their own body, it is their own business. And I see absolutely no problem in pursuing a little harmless fun with an adult, responsible and consenting partner. No, it does not hurt me in any way, and even if it did, it is not your business.

I never said it was my business.

I am pointing out that it is your business, why it is your business and why you shouldn’t ignore it as being your business.

Suppose, it was God pointing this out to you? Would you then say it was also none of his business?

And how do you reconcile that with your claim that if "God never points out our temporal mistakes, how could we learn from them” when in the next breath you say it is none of his business?

Which is it? His business or none of his business?

Perhaps he will leave you to make up your mind on that before he does anything at all.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

. Whatever they do to their own body, it is their own business. And I see absolutely no problem in pursuing a little harmless fun with an adult, responsible and consenting partner. No, it does not hurt me in any way, and even if it did, it is not your business.

I see nothing wrong with pursuing “harmless” fun either, unless you are talking about adultry, which can hurt a lot of people. And it’s better not to take sex so casually, because actually there are a lot of emotions involved in the act, and people fall in love and get hurt when the other is just using that person for sex. (If that’s what you mean by harmless fun.) You really cheapen a very deep act.

Anyway, things that seem to have no immediate outcome, good or bad, often have one later. Not all things we do get immediate justice. People “get away with things” often for years and then they see the consequences of their actions.

You seem to have a very flippant attitude towards life. Hopefully you are young and will eventually grow out of it before you do too much damage to yourself and others.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . I hope you will get the point: “do not stick your nose where it does not belong”. . .

Who is in whose house here?
Dude you came to a Catholic Forum.

If someone here sees you ready to go flying off a cliff,
the inclination is to give you the heads-up.

At this point it is all up to you. Your choice.

 

[Hee_Zen]

I see nothing wrong with pursuing “harmless” fun either, unless you are talking about adultry, which can hurt a lot of people.

And that is why I am NOT talking about adultery.

You really cheapen a very deep act.

There is no “one size fits all”. Sometimes it is for fun only. But let’s take a more serious example: let’s take two people who are married, who love each other, who do NOT want to have children, and who want to give pleasure to each other - preferably every day. Not necessarily in a “simultaneous” manner, rather taking turns and the “active” member concentrates on the other. Neither one “uses” the other. According to the church, they commit a mortal sin, and they “deserve” eternal damnation and torture. Sorry, it is this kind of a “teaching” which lowers the credibility of the church.

Anyway, things that seem to have no immediate outcome, good or bad, often have one later. Not all things we do get immediate justice. People “get away with things” often for years and then they see the consequences of their actions.

Show me what kind of “harm” can come from the example above. Don’t just say: “but there might be…”.

You seem to have a very flippant attitude towards life. Hopefully you are young and will eventually grow out of it before you do too much damage to yourself and others.

No, I have a very realistic attitude toward life, due my rather “ripe” age. Been there, done it, have a t-shirt to prove it. As such I smile at your preposterous remark about “not doing too much damage” to others.

 

[Gregory_Olson]

Hey again Hee Zen,

I need to get with the program here! Everyone else already beat me to it!
Actually I believe all the points I have to make are new:

If one disagrees with another point of view, it cannot be brushed aside with the objection: “you simply did not understand”. I used to be a believer, so I am perfectly aware of the Christian line of thought - I simply disagree with it. It is rather frustrating to see this “staple” answer: “you don’t understand”, instead of an actual analysis.
…
The atheist only presumes about God one thing: that God does not exist. Atheists only talk about the “Christian’s concept of God” and nothing else. And since these concepts are human concepts expressed in human word and terms, they cannot be brushed off by asserting that the atheist did not understand the Christian view.

I completely hear you. But I didn’t brush off Lem’s argument by saying he doesn’t understand Christian teaching. I tried to identify his misunderstanding as a cause for his argument, and then in an example, I went on to show exactly what his false presumption was, and used this to claim that his argument was mistaken. Lem was arguing against a position that isn’t held by Christians. He actually *did *misunderstand a concept held by humans, expressed in human word and terms. What else can I say?

Moreover, there is no single, uniform “Christian view”. There are many, and not just the difference between Catholics and Protestants, but also within Catholicism as well.

Catholicism is by nature a single, uniform Christian view. Maybe you should have tried for a different example, because there actually is a perfectly set definition for mortal sin. You yourself mentioned the three requirements; how much more exact can you get? Perhaps you were unaware that the first requirement, sin of grave matter, is perfectly laid out too? Because the next two are pretty cut-and-dry.

There is a basic dogma, namely that “the **obstinate **lack of belief in God is an offense against the Holy Spirit” and as such it merits eternal damnation". How can the lack of belief be called “sinful”? There is another one: “one unrepented mortal sin” will be punished by eternal torture. …

I think that you had a typo here. Should not your sentence read: “1) that the main purpose of damnation is NOT punishment”? Because no matter how you view it, “eternal damnation” for a finite deed cannot be called “just” under any definition of “justice” I am aware of. And this cannot be countered by the argument that God’s justice is fundamentally different from human justice. If they are fundamentally different, then the same word should not be used to describe them.

So, if someone performs a single act of masturbation, and does not “repent” it, that means that there was no “goodness” left in him? The reason he does not repent it, because he disagrees about the “gravity” of such action.

Well, this was exactly what I was talking about! Here, specifically, you actually have misunderstood the Catholic position; there’s just no way to get around it. From the Catechism: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell.’ … The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.”
God does not send an unrepentant man to hell as a parent sends a disobedient kid to his room; to “teach him a lesson.” We choose to go hell ourselves! Answer this question: does the unrepentant sinner choose to be with God, or without God? Hell *is *“being without God.” That’s what eternal punishment is chiefly composed of. Separation from God. It’s not reward and punishment like Pavlov’s dogs, it’s punishment like a consequence of bad decision. All you have to do to go to hell is 1) separate yourself from God, and 2) not change your mind about it (i.e. not be sorry for it). Damnation has far less to do with God’s decision than what you’ve been trying to assert, and has far more to do with our own. You’re arguing as if God set up hell for us like a teacher sets up detention, but he didn’t–Satan did. Separation from God is what the devil chose for himself.
Look at it like math. Goodness = Godliness = being with God. Being without God = absence of Godliness = absence of goodness = hell.

You used masturbation as an example. Well, if God told us to “be fertile, multiply,” and made the union between a man and a woman a beautiful thing–in fact he raised it to the level of a sacrament–and if he made us in his own image, and gave us bodies that are temples of God, and if I were to use all these infinitely beautiful gifts, my God-like rationality, my free will, my time on Earth, the image of God himself, etc., for the sake of a pleasurable chemical in my brain, I would say this would be a pretty open rejection of God and his gifts. Masturbation is evil not because of what it is, but because of what it isn’t—because of the enormity of goodness that it by nature simply throws away. Sex for pleasure, which you also mentioned, is wrong for exactly the same reason. It’s like informing me, while at a banquet for a king, that by being at the feast I’m missing out on gnawing on an old rope for nutriment.
Sorry if this metaphor was cheesy; I’m just not as good at it as Jesus is.

To be continued…

 

[Gregory_Olson]

Greg’s post Part two. Hold on to your pants, this is going to get philosophical…

Since God never points out our temporal mistakes, how could we learn from them?

He did point out our temporal mistakes. They’re in the Bible and in divinely revealed Tradition.

Please, get real. There is nothing in performing a “non-procreative” act of sex which would “hurt” anyone. There are all those victimless crimes, which are considered “sinful acts”. If the church would like to be taken seriously, it should quickly re-classify those as “no one else’s business”.

As I’ve already said, the Church classifies them as sinful because they lack in so much goodness, and because they squander, undermine, and enfeeble so many wonderful gifts of God.
And as Peter Plato has already pointed out, they hurt you. Not to mention the person whose body you’re using, regardless of whether she’s willing. Sex is a good example of a wonderful gift of God, and if you misuse it, you can cripple yourself against it. By this I mean it can become a cold, purely hormonal rubbing of meat together, instead of a glorious all-encompassing gift of self.
This misuse also hurts anyone who looks up to you as an example.

Hell is not supposed to be “annihilation”, it is supposed to be “eternal torture”. And that is a huge difference. Annihilation would be quite acceptable.

Here is possibly the most crucial way you misunderstand the Christian viewpoint. These three short sentences deserve three pages of response from me. “Annihilation” would be a very apt way to describe separation from God, and so would “eternal torture.”
You’re fine with total, eternal depravation of all good things (annihilation), but are horrified at the idea of an unpleasant sensation?
You remember when I said those in hell chose to be there? What do you think their thought process was? “…Annihilation would be quite acceptable…” In annihilation, you’re missing out on everything, eternally. You’re missing out on inheriting Heaven, and on being one with God in eternal love forever. You could have had infinite, eternal goodness, and you have no goodness at all. In other words, you would be in a state of utter evil. Physical torture really wouldn’t be a big concern.
Here’s the problem:

Evil is not the “privation of good”, it is a volitional, malicious act to inflict some gratuitous harm on someone.

Evil is in fact the privation of good. “Sin” comes from old English, meaning “missing the mark.” (I haven’t properly checked this, so I might be completely off, but I think it may also come from Latin “sans,” meaning “without.”)

Why is maliciously harming someone evil? Because you’re taking away life, health, happiness, truth, or some other “good” away from that person.
It’s like the relationship between a rectangle and a square–all malicious harm is evil, but not all evil is malicious harm. While a sin is a voluntary act, evil isn’t even limited by this; confusion, ignorance, and sickness are all evil to some extent. I know this is a baseless assertion to you, but that’s because, as I was saying earlier, without religion you’re totally “free” to define evil however you like. Evil has no meaning for you other than the meaning you give it, and, in a more general sense, this is why I think it’s unlikely that anyone who goes to hell see themselves as “evil.” They’ve existentialized it (and as they become it, also themselves) into meaninglessness.

I keep forgetting I’m posting this online; I’ve done here the Internet equivalent of thinking aloud. I also keep forgetting I’m talking to people with twice my age and experience–please forgive me if my post gets disrespectful or naive.

-Greg

 

[Peter_Plato]

No, it does not hurt me in any way, and even if it did, it is not your business.

May I ask how you reconcile the above with love being “unconditional concern for the well-being of another as other?”

If the other is concerned for your well-being, basically, what you are doing is rebuffing their love for you.

At a more basic level, this “none of your business” ethical philosophy is antithetical to love because it is saying my love for you ends where you say it does rather than in the truth of what constitutes your well-being.

Are, for example, children to be taught that kind of love as part of their upbringing, such that they can tell parents who are concerned for their well-being to “Get-off! It’s none of your business!” Will you model for them real concern for their well-being (love) only while they are part of your household and then afterwards let them know that they have the option of telling you it is none of your business, even when they do themselves irreparable harm? Would it truly be none of your business? Would it be loving them?

You do realize, then, that “none of your business” has irreconcilable issues with regards to truly loving others? In particular, when the ones you love have a very poor or ill-defined notion of what constitutes their well-being, your principle of “mind your own business” seems inconsistent with love at a very basic level.

 

[Hee_Zen]

May I ask how you reconcile the above with love being “unconditional concern for the well-being of another as other?”

Simple. “Love” is not unasked for “meddling” with someone else’s life. It is not a variant of the “nanny state”, which tries to make decisions for you. You are not the arbiter of “what is good for me”. The unasked for “meddling” can only be justified in one case: if the person is about to embark of a line of action, which is fatal. And even in that case, the interference must be restricted to a friendly advice. If the advice is rejected, the “meddling” must stop.

Now I understand that you (generic you) do this meddling with total sincerity, with the best intentions. The only trouble is that you cannot substantiate that you are “right” and everyone who disagrees with you is “wrong”. So, let’s just say that your “love” is misguided, it rests on quicksand.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Lem was arguing against a position that isn’t held by Christians. He actually *did *misunderstand a concept held by humans, expressed in human word and terms.

Not so. He went along with the core assumptions of Christianity, namely:

1. God created the universe.
2. God created the inhabitants of the universe. and
3. God has complete control of the universe, and everything else in it.
   Is there a “misunderstanding” here? Obviously he did not go along with the “fluff”, so the experimenter is not a **complete **equivalent of the Christian God-concept. But his “God”, the experimenter is outside the time of the personoids, and the experimenter is not constrained by the universe of the personoids. He has total control over the world. So the experimenter is a **very good “approximation” **of the basic tenets of the Christian concept of God.

Starting from this point, Lem argues against **other assumptions **of Christianity, the “revelation”, the “afterlife” and the “worship” of God. He shows that these assumptions are totally irrational. It is inconceivable that the “creator” of the universe would concern himself with being “worshipped” by the inhabitants of the world. “Revelation” would be the cruelest thing to do, to say: “nyah, nyah you will die and if you don’t do exactly what I want you to do, you will burn until the end of eternity”. And as such the concept of “afterlife” is preposterous, to reward “worship” and to “punish” non-worship is horrendous - especially since there is no “revelation” of the “do’s” and “don’t’s” we should follow.

Of course nowadays it is politically incorrect to stick with the time-honored picture of hell. It is now “separation” from God. But we are separated from God in this existence, and it is not too bad. And don’t try to say that we are NOT separated from God here. My point is that Lem did not concoct an arbitrary and incorrect picture of God, he started with the basic Christian concept of God, and showed how incorrect the other assumptions are. If you really want to criticize his ideas, you should do it starting from this point.

Catholicism is by nature a single, uniform Christian view.

No, it is not. Catholicism is far from being a uniform set of beliefs. There is sizable (and growing!) percentage of Catholics, who are usually called “heretics”, or “Cafeteria Catholics” and who vehemently disagree with certain teachings of the Vatican. In the “good old times” these heretics were burned at the stakes, but today they are a force that must be reckoned with.

Maybe you should have tried for a different example, because there actually is a perfectly set definition for mortal sin. You yourself mentioned the three requirements; how much more exact can you get? Perhaps you were unaware that the first requirement, sin of grave matter, is perfectly laid out too? Because the next two are pretty cut-and-dry.

Oh, no. Only the third requirement is clear, the “full consent”. The other ones are not. What is “grave matter” and what is “full knowledge” are not. You brought up the “Bible”, the “Sacred Tradition” and the “Catechism” as supporting arguments. You really should realize that these are rejected by atheists, you only wasted your time by bringing them up.

God does not send an unrepentant man to hell as a parent sends a disobedient kid to his room; to “teach him a lesson.” We choose to go hell ourselves!

How many times have I heard this! I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this is the worst argument of all. No, we do not “bang” on the doors of hell, demanding to be tortured forever. Sometime the apologists say that we “choose” hell the same way as criminals “choose” prison. Of course the criminals do not “choose” prison, and they must be “thrown” into prison. But at least they can have a clear, unambiguous knowledge about the laws they “really choose” to break. This is inapplicable to the “laws” we are supposed to keep. No, the bible does not count, the catechism does not count and the “sacred” tradition does not count.

You used masturbation as an example. Well, if God told us to “be fertile, multiply,”…

The operating word here is “IF”. And as usual, you have no supporting argument for it. But you can think about it in a little more detail. An average human being has about 40 to 50 sexually active years. During this time they have sex several thousands of times, and the average couple has 2.2 children. To say that sex MUST be open to have children every time is crazy. Why should we? Biologically speaking masturbation is not even neutral, it is beneficial. None of the arguments you brought up takes this simple fact into consideration, they are all based upon the bible, the “sacred” tradition and the catechism - which are summarily rejected by all atheists and two of which are rejected by non-Catholic Christians. You (generic, not personal you) have no rational arguments against this practice.

Anyhow, I am afraid, our views are very far apart. I enjoy you (name removed by moderator)ut, but you should stick to reality and reason if you wish to argue. Your posts are never disrespectful, so don’t worry. Maybe a bit naïve sometimes, but that goes with the territory. Wishing you the best and keep those posts coming. Cheers!

 

[Peter_Plato]

Simple. “Love” is not unasked for “meddling” with someone else’s life. It is not a variant of the “nanny state”, which tries to make decisions for you. You are not the arbiter of “what is good for me”. The unasked for “meddling” can only be justified in one case: if the person is about to embark of a line of action, which is fatal. And even in that case, the interference must be restricted to a friendly advice. If the advice is rejected, the “meddling” must stop.

This seems, to make an understatement, a tad arbitrary and ad hoc. Your “fatal” criterion - which would make a great theme for a Monty Python skit, by the way - is comical, and almost laughable if it weren’t for the fact that you seriously propose it. It assumes the one loved has some kind of “godlike” status both in terms of their ability for determining their own good and in terms of their moral autonomy.

This view is not even consistent with basic morality since moral “meddling” is not limited to merely “giving advice” regarding fatal acts, but proportionate “meddling” may be applied to counter any immoral act where harm is about to be perpetrated. And THAT permission exists with regard to strangers, let alone loved ones.

When someone is about to murder or severely harm another, we do not restrict interference to mere “friendly advice.”

An image of the police comes to mind here. Perhaps the police should have their guns, nightsticks, tasers and handcuffs taken from them and their actions restricted to the mere giving of “friendly advice.”

No, the moral law is precisely what permits meddling by due authority. If a loved one were to do something harmful to themselves or others, love itself would permit meddling since by committing an immoral act, the one loved is acting against their own determinable good and, therefore, have shown themselves unable to act on their own behalf for their own good.

The kind of interference you call “friendly advice” may be applicable where the end good is in dispute or unclear, but NOT under conditions where that good is clear and determinable. Failure to interfere under those conditions is simply failure to love - both a failure of the loved one to love themselves and of the one failing to act on their behalf. Your depiction amounts to rationalizing both failures with questionable rhetoric.

Now I understand that you (generic you) do this meddling with total sincerity, with the best intentions. The only trouble is that you cannot substantiate that you are “right” and everyone who disagrees with you is “wrong”. So, let’s just say that your “love” is misguided, it rests on quicksand.

Actually, the quicksand rests under the person claiming there is no way to resolve what is right because they have no solid conception of the good or goodness to ground moral activity. That is why your (specific “your”) effigy of what morality is justifies or warrants only inaction in the face of wrong.

Your inability to substantiate knowing what is right is, itself, a moral failure and one that follows directly from standing on the moral quicksand of relativism - which is clearly your moral “ground” since you cannot justify any moral action at all by claiming no one can substantiate who is right and who is wrong. Try to extract yourself from any moral dilemma based upon the ground of “no one can determine what is right.”

For one thing, you cannot with any degree of certainty claim that you are right in morally restricting interference to mere “friendly advice” since you have disclaimed all ability to determine what is morally right to begin with.

Why should we believe that you have magically gained the ability or clarity to determine precisely when and how interference is to be warranted in this case with no clear grounds for doing so?