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

[Hee_Zen]

Who claimed that natural events don’t exist? I don’t know any theist that would say natural events don’t exist.

Sure you do. Those who say that the universe would simply disappear into nothingness, if God would not “pay attention” and would not “maintain” it from second to second. Last time I checked, it was also the church which proposed this as the “sustaining cause” argument.

I’m sure this thread has to have at some point covered that God isn’t of the material universe so we can’t just “grab him by the scuff of the neck”.

If you ever utter a supplicatory prayer, then this is exactly what you attempt to do.

This thread is too long for me to search if you gave an answer to this already so forgive me but Hee_Zen how do you explain there being something rather than nothing?

I don’t. The existence of the universe is accepted as an existential primary. Space, time, matter, energy, causation are all defined **within **the universe. None of these can be applied **to **the universe.

And I don’t mean something appearing from a low energy field or a quantum potential, but literally nothing. You mentioned the big bang starting from the singularity and then changing but the singularity doesn’t explain itself so must be contingent on something else and what caused it to change in the first place?

Nothing “explains” itself. This is just an ill-formed and nonsensical proposition. If one wishes to avoid infinite regress of the “explanations”, one must stop somewhere. Atheists stop at the universe. Theists go one step further, and posit some “god” and the final explanation. When asked about their “god”, they say that “god” is self-sufficient, it needs no further explanation. This has two problems. First, to say that “god” is self-explanatory is just a “brute assertion”. Second, the “god-hypothesis” explains nothing. To say that an “unknowable being using unimaginable means made the universe somehow happen” is NOT an explanation.

Also how do you explain objective moral truths?

Simple. What you call “moral” is simply a distillate of the human behavioral norms which allow both the individuals and the groups function with good efficiency in any given society at a specific time. I do not accept the existence of “absolute” moral norms which are independent from the intent, the means, the end. I will give just one example. Murder is widely considered an “immoral act”. However, if murder would be reversible, it would be “no big deal”.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Me too. It’s all good.

You know, I invested a lot of time, thought and effort into that post. You simply selected one sentence of minor relevance and chose to reply to that. Admittedly you were right when you “rubbed my nose” into the inconsistency of what I wrote there, but the fact that you chose only one sentence “insinuates” that you found the rest unworthy to respond to. Now maybe you don’t care, which is fine, or did not have time to get into the details, but without an explanation I find it - well - somewhat sad to see the effort to be brushed to the side.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Sure. As such it is not the **opposite **of theism. Which is:
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures. - Oxford English Dictionary.
The logical negation of theism is not naturalism and vice-versa. They are “sort of” opposites, but not as an “A” vs. “~A”.

It’s not per se an opposite of theism, but de facto it is.

Let’s see:* the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes,*

----Everything comes from natural causes. So this already rules out classical theism. Perhaps pantheism is an option, but is there really a difference between pantheism and atheism?

I wonder if you did. Theism is the belief that a god, or some gods exist. The rest is all fluff. Even if there is a god, it does not follow that “natural” events do not exist.

I don’t know of any theist that believes natural events don’t exist.

It describes what this God allegedly did or does, but it does not describe what this God actually IS. I keep asking to enumerate the attributes of God, along with a description of what those attributes are - but so far, no response.

God is supernatural, not natural. Which means he is above our nature. This is why we can comprehend natural essences, but not God’s essence.

So no, we can’t answer your request as to what God’s attributes are. But we can say God’s essence is analogous love, etc.

It simply says that there is no need for pointing toward something “beyond” nature.

Why not? Is nature self-sufficient, existing in itself, responsible for its own existence? IOW, is the essence of nature identical with its existence?

The realm for the God-of-the-gaps is constantly shrinking.

Good. Then we can move beyond caricatures of what Catholics believe.

That never happens, even when their alleged god can “don” a “temporal suit”, is able to manifest itself in a physical form and prove once and for all that it exists.

That misses the entire point. God shows us through Jesus that his revelation of Himself isn’t through an “obvious” method (like the demands sometimes placed upon him from various atheists, an unmistakable sign for all people), but at the same time he gives us an unmistakable sign in the Cross. His supernatural Revelatory presence (as Christianity maintains, as distinct from classical theism in itself which makes no claim as to whether or not Revelation has occurred) is to be found in ordinary everyday life. And it is through seemingly powerless love that confirms the reality and truth of the Christian message. Ignatius’ famous saying comes to mind: “Not to be confined by the greatest, yet to be contained within the smallest–that is divine.

 

[Peter_Plato]

What does “complete understanding” mean? As long as one has enough information to make predictions and/or use the information as a constructor, we have sufficient understanding. And how do you find out if your “understanding” is sufficient or not? Yep, by making a prediction and attempt to verify / falsify it. What else is there?

Well, no, Hee_Zen. This is precisely the matter that I brought up in terms of the difficulty that comes about when your assumption is made that observation is sufficent for knowledge and agency.

Your definition of “sufficient understanding” leaves completely undefined and unanswered the question of “Sufficient for what?” You assume that “sufficient for whatever humans do” answers completely the question of sufficiency as if whatever it is that humans construct is sufficient to make the inadequacy of prediction/verification simply disappear as an issue.

That kind of “knowledge,” as I pointed out previously, does not answer the question that is required by moral agency, in terms of what SHOULD humans do, rather than merely assume that what humans do do is, in fact, sufficient.

I wondered, in your replies to me, whether you understood this point and were sidestepping it intentionally or whether you understood it at all because you keep avoiding it in all of your replies.

The point being that if humans are moral agents then “knowledge” from observation and verification alone cannot be sufficient in terms of moral agency. The kind of knowledge required by moral agency will be one of ends and means. Towards what ends do humans exist, why are those ends significant and how can our observations and verifications about the external world (scientific method) assist us in achieving those ends?

As agents in the real world and, determinably, as MORAL agents, those questions are crucial for humans to act as humans.

Your denial that anything beyond the scientific method is required gets you into the pickle of claiming that morality merely describes what the current social order prescribes – which led to the issue of German Nazi society, for example.

The dilemma, for you, is whether to deny morality is at all meaningful and admit that it is merely a description of social convention or admit that morality is a significant concern and therefore concede that knowledge means more than mere pragmatic observation and verification, ends being most relevant.

That is the fence that has surreptitiously lodged itself as the resting place of your backside – wedged itself into the “base” of your world view, so to speak. You may claim to be comfortable ensconced upon such a precipitous and piercing edge, but from our perspective you need to find a way to dismount safely or risk tearing the bowels of your humanity asunder. Post #497, for example, points to a tear in the fabric of your moral agency.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Nothing “explains” itself. This is just an ill-formed and nonsensical proposition. If one wishes to avoid infinite regress of the “explanations”, one must stop somewhere. Atheists stop at the universe.

Atheists stopping at the universe means atheists are being completely arbitrary in choosing to stop there. The universe does not explain itself. The pretext that this arbtrary stopping point is warranted is merely a pretext for denying that the supernatural can exist when no such argument is legitimated.

Theists go one step further, and posit some “god” and the final explanation. When asked about their “god”, they say that “god” is self-sufficient, it needs no further explanation. This has two problems. First, to say that “god” is self-explanatory is just a “brute assertion”. Second, the “god-hypothesis” explains nothing. To say that an “unknowable being using unimaginable means made the universe somehow happen” is NOT an explanation.

This is a ridiculous contention, one made even more ridiculous by the nonsensical claim that God is nothing but a “brute assertion.” This is a nonsensical claim because it must wave away thousands of years of thoughtful debate concerning the nature of God and how God could be self-explanatory in a non-trivial sense.

This gesturing of yours is either pure dishonesty on your part or a complete failure in terms of understanding what a great deal of 2500 years of classical philosophy has been all about.

You may claim that attempts to get at how God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens or Actus Purus are merely “brute assertions,” but that claim, itself, would function as a “brute assertion” on your part since thoughtful arguments, such as the one below by Ed Feser, certainly do carry with them a great deal of explanatory force and meaning.

So, the theist is well advised to steer a middle course between occasionalism and deism, and that is of course exactly what concurrentism – defended by Aquinas and other Scholastics – aims to do. According to concurrentism, natural objects have real, built-in causal power, but it cannot be exercised even for an instant unless God “concurs” with such exercise as a cooperating cause. Some analogies: Given its sharpness, a scalpel has a power to cut that a blunt piece of wood does not; still, unless the surgeon cooperates in its activity by pushing it against the patient’s flesh, it will not in fact cut. Given its red tint, a piece of glass has a power to cause the wall across from it to appear red; but unless light cooperates by shining through it, the glass will not in fact do so. Similarly, created or secondary causes cannot exercise their powers unless God as First Cause cooperates. Because these powers are “built into” natural objects (as the sharpness is built into the scalpel or the tint built into the glass) occasionalism is avoided. Because the powers cannot operate without divine concurrence, deism is avoided.
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2014/12/causality-pantheism-and-deism.html

Your arbitrarily stopping explanations at “the observable” leaves completely unanswered the question of morality (as I showed in my previous post) since mere observation of natural events cannot provide to us a complete accounting regarding what the final ends for existence could be and why those would be important.

 

[Bahman]

Please explain what do you mean by this phrase?

A lame method which cannot explain reality. I am a physicist myself so be patient with me. It is however a useful method for explaining phenomena we experience outside, so called objective reality. What is phenomena? First, what is event? Event is what is experienced in consciousness, hard idealism, or what happen outside/change and can be experienced, soft idealism. Phenomena is an accepted fact about the existence of a correlation in a set of events. Fact is an indisputable preposition. Scientific method is then a systematic method which attempts to construct knowledge of subject matter. And finally, knowledge is subjective structured awareness which differs from objective awareness, the former is related to an subjective experience (what happens inside, like invention, finding, creation), whereas the latter is related to an objective experience (what happen outside).

Why scientific method is lame? Because it is based on consciousness yet it cannot explain consciousness.

What does it entail, and how is it different from some “other” methods?

Meta-science. Which by definition is systematic method which attempts to construct knowledge of what is beyond subject matter (what we call it common experience), namely all experience which take places inside. This is the area that scientific method is not applicable to for a simple reason, it is completely personal hence it cannot be measured with scientific instruments since we don’t know what is consciousness yet.

What are the precise steps one must take to find out if a proposition about the external reality is true or not?

We could have uncommon experience of what we call external reality, although there exist an external reality which we have common experience about it but that doesn’t prove that what is external to me is not wider than what is external to you. In simple word, reality has layers hence you have to turn inside to out in order to have access to what was inside you which becomes your outside. This naturally happen in the moment of death, yet you have access to it when you are alive. Aren’t you interested? I did it! :bounce:

What are its alleged limitation?

Please read previous comment. In simple word it deals with our common experiences.

 

[Shaolen]

Simple. What you call “moral” is simply a distillate of the human behavioral norms which allow both the individuals and the groups function with good efficiency in any given society at a specific time. I do not accept the existence of “absolute” moral norms which are independent from the intent, the means, the end. I will give just one example. Murder is widely considered an “immoral act”. However, if murder would be reversible, it would be “no big deal”.

The rest of you responses were addressed by Peter Plato. For objective moral truths you seem to be running the same course as earlier in the thread where you met a dead end. You may not accept objective morality but that doesn’t prove it doesn’t exist. Your example of murder doesn’t work because you changed a basic reality of what murder is when you hypothetically stated if it was reversible. Murder being the unjust taking of an innocent life wouldn’t quite be murder if it was reversible. Let me ask, would you say it is always wrong in any society to torture little kids for pleasure? Or was dr. Martin Luther king Jr. Immoral when he tried to change the social norm of racial discrimination?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Murder is widely considered an “immoral act”. However, if murder would be reversible, it would be “no big deal”.

This is an interesting concession on your part, since God as the Creator of human life would be in the position - by your concession - of being able to make the taking of human life “no big deal” FOR HIM since he could undo it, so to speak.

Therefore, any disparaging reference on your part to Old Testament commands by God to kill would not have any moral cogency because his ability to reverse death would make those commands “no big deal” for you.

The issue, it would seem, is that murder would still be wrong for human beings not necessarily or merely because someone dies but because of the malicious intent on our part to make them die when we have no idea what that even entails other than, as far as we can tell, getting rid of them.

God, on the other hand, would fully know what death does entail and would have the power to deal with it. Therefore, a command on his part to “kill” would have quite different moral implications from a unilateral determination to do so on our part.

Good that you cleared this up.

 

[Gorgias]

Now maybe you don’t care, which is fine, or did not have time to get into the details, but without an explanation I find it - well - somewhat sad to see the effort to be brushed to the side.

Really?

No, I didn’t find it necessary to comment on your “criticism accepted” sentence; that would’ve felt like ‘rubbing it in’ to me, and I’m not all about embarrassing folks here. But, if you require affirmation: “attaboy! It takes a big man to admit his mistakes, and it’s heartening to see that you’re that kind of guy! ”

I also didn’t find it necessary to confirm your assertion about the rarity of such outbursts. One or one thousand, it’s all good.

I did want to affirm that I, too, get frustrated, and I, too, sometimes have an uncharitable thing or two to say to people. By recognizing that you aren’t the only one who tries and occasionally fails to remain charitable, I thought I was (at least implicitly) affirming that your “effort [wasn’t being] brushed to the side.” Guess I was wrong.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . What you call “moral” is simply a distillate of the human behavioral norms which allow both the individuals and the groups function with good efficiency in any given society at a specific time. I do not accept the existence of “absolute” moral norms which are independent from the intent, the means, the end. . .

You may wish to familiarize yourself with what the Church teaches:

*THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS

1749 Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil.

I. The Sources of Morality
1750 The morality of human acts depends on:

• the object chosen;
• the end in view or the intention;
• the circumstances of the action.
  The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the “sources,” or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.
  1751 The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. the object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience.
  1752 In contrast to the object, the intention resides in the acting subject. Because it lies at the voluntary source of an action and determines it by its end, intention is an element essential to the moral evaluation of an action. the end is the first goal of the intention and indicates the purpose pursued in the action. the intention is a movement of the will toward the end: it is concerned with the goal of the activity. It aims at the good anticipated from the action undertaken. Intention is not limited to directing individual actions, but can guide several actions toward one and the same purpose; it can orient one’s whole life toward its ultimate end. For example, a service done with the end of helping one’s neighbor can at the same time be inspired by the love of God as the ultimate end of all our actions. One and the same action can also be inspired by several intentions, such as performing a service in order to obtain a favor or to boast about it.
  1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. the end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation. On the other hand, an added bad intention (such as vainglory) makes an act evil that, in and of itself, can be good (such as almsgiving).39
  1754 The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can also diminish or increase the agent’s responsibility (such as acting out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in itself evil.

II. Good Acts and Evil Acts
1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting “in order to be seen by men”).
The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.
1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.

IN BRIEF
1757 The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the three “sources” of the morality of human acts.
1758 The object chosen morally specifies the act of willing accordingly as reason recognizes and judges it good or evil.
1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). the end does not justify the means.
1760 A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end, and of its circumstances together.
1761 There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose, because their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.*

Do read this if you want to argue the matter.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Finally, I would be pleasantly surprised if I received a detailed answer to this post. But I do not count on it.

Not necessary. Others already have given answers, and in some cases better ones than I could have given. to them.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . I do not accept the existence of “absolute” moral norms which are independent from the intent, the means, the end. I will give just one example. Murder is widely considered an “immoral act”. However, if murder . . .

Perhaps the issue has to do with the object; not so much murder, however.

The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.

As St. Augustine is quoted, “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
A tough one for this age and all ages.

 

[Hee_Zen]

----Everything comes from natural causes. So this already rules out classical theism. Perhaps pantheism is an option, but is there really a difference between pantheism and atheism?

There is also “deism” and some other “isms”. I already stipulated that naturalism cannot be “proven”, but it could be easily “refuted”. All you have to do is present your “supernatural” entities.

I don’t know of any theist that believes natural events don’t exist.

I already explained it above. The catholic position is that God “maintains” the universe. If God would not maintain it every second, the universe would simply disappear into nonexistence. I did not come up with this, the church did. The church denies the “deistic” approach, which would say that the creator simply set the “ball” in motion, and then stood back to enjoy the scenery. And this means is that what we consider “natural”, is really just a manifestation of God’s activity. So there is nothing “natural”.

God is supernatural, not natural. Which means he is above our nature. This is why we can comprehend natural essences, but not God’s essence.

So no, we can’t answer your request as to what God’s attributes are.

Translation: “you don’t know what you are talking about”. Which was obvious from the get-go.

But we can say God’s essence is analogous love, etc.

An analogy only works if one also has already has some a-priori knowledge upon which the analogy can be founded. For example, we talk about the “loyalty” of a dog, knowing full well that it is just an analogy. “Human loyalty” in relation to “humans” is like the “dog’s loyalty” in relation to “dogs”. Here we know the term “human”, and “dog” as well as “human loyalty”. As such we can “surmise” what the dog’s loyalty would be. This does not work with God, because there are 2 unknowns, not just one. To say that “human love” in relation to “humans” is like “God’s love” in relation to “God”. Here we have two unknowns, both God and God’s love… The equation is unsolvable. Not to mention that since God’s alleged “love” permits the current state of affairs, then there is no need for “hate”.

Why not? Is nature self-sufficient, existing in itself, responsible for its own existence? IOW, is the essence of nature identical with its existence?

I reject the whole Thomistic philosophy. The universe simply exists and that is all there to it. The basic principles expressed in the conversation laws (matter, energy, momentum, etc…) make the whole “ex nihilo creation” unacceptable.

That misses the entire point. God shows us through Jesus that his revelation of Himself isn’t through an “obvious” method (like the demands sometimes placed upon him from various atheists, an unmistakable sign for all people), but at the same time he gives us an unmistakable sign in the Cross. His supernatural Revelatory presence (as Christianity maintains, as distinct from classical theism in itself which makes no claim as to whether or not Revelation has occurred) is to be found in ordinary everyday life. And it is through seemingly powerless love that confirms the reality and truth of the Christian message. Ignatius’ famous saying comes to mind: “Not to be confined by the greatest, yet to be contained within the smallest–that is divine.

**Mythology **works even less, than Thomism. But, according to your own mythology God can take a physical form, can interact with us in a shape that we can understand. There is nothing unreasonable in requiring that God meet us on our “turf”. And please do not bring up the nonsense about the clay criticizing the potter. As I already said, the concept of “one size fits all” is a bad approach. Since people are different, and have a different level of “sufficient evidence”, then it is reasonable to expect to have an individually tailored “revelation” to everyone.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Well, no, Hee_Zen. This is precisely the matter that I brought up in terms of the difficulty that comes about when your assumption is made that observation is sufficent for knowledge and agency.

I already challenged you to quote my words back to me, where allegedly I said that observation is sufficient for knowledge. I also said that as soon as you do it, I will be happy to continue. Up until that point your posts are and will be IGNORED, and you can only blame yourself for it. Savvy?

 

[Hee_Zen]

No, I didn’t find it necessary to comment on your “criticism accepted” sentence; that would’ve felt like ‘rubbing it in’ to me, and I’m not all about embarrassing folks here.

Total misunderstanding. I would have liked to see you response to the REST of that post, from which you chose to reply to ONE sentence.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Not necessary. Others already have given answers, and in some cases better ones than I could have given. to them.

No surprise there. Have it your way.

 

[Hee_Zen]

You may wish to familiarize yourself with what the Church teaches:

Do read this if you want to argue the matter.

I already knew all that. It does not mean that I fully agree with it. Some parts, yes, other parts, no. But this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, so I decline to continue here. Somewhere else, certainly.

The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.

And this little “gem” is a perfect example of what I reject. To label the act of love between consenting adults as “morally evil” is so “far out”, that I will not even attempt to find an adjective to describe it.

 

[Hee_Zen]

The rest of you responses were addressed by Peter Plato.

Sorry, I ignore all his posts until he comes clean. It is a rule of the board to substantiate one’s assertions. And he “accused” me to profess a stance which I do not hold. So I demand that he would dig out the posts where I supposedly said what he asserts. Once he does it, I will be happy to acknowledge his posts again - and I will apologize, too. Or he can admit that he was mistaken and I never said what he says I did. I am sick and tired of these baseless “accusations” and distortions. So if you wish to reflect on some point, you need to do it yourself.

For objective moral truths you seem to be running the same course as earlier in the thread where you met a dead end. You may not accept objective morality but that doesn’t prove it doesn’t exist.

I said that I accept objective morality, but not an absolute one. Getting frustrating to be misquoted all the time.

Your example of murder doesn’t work because you changed a basic reality of what murder is when you hypothetically stated if it was reversible. Murder being the unjust taking of an innocent life wouldn’t quite be murder if it was reversible.

No, murder is the **unlawful **taking a human life. It has nothing to do with “innocent”. It is a legal term. And it is viewed harshly, because it is irreversible.

Let me ask, would you say it is always wrong in any society to torture little kids for pleasure?

In our existing societies I would agree that it is. But you created a complex example, with the end, the means and the intent. I have no problem with making an assessment of a fully qualified act. But I could envision a society, where such an act would be acceptable. Example: in a hypothetical world, where only the tortured ones would get to heaven as a reward for their suffering. You guys keep forgetting that “absolute” morality must hold in every conceivable society, in any conceivable time for every possible circumstances. Not just human societies in our age.

Or was dr. Martin Luther king Jr. Immoral when he tried to change the social norm of racial discrimination?

This is a specific act, and I agree with it. He used peaceful measures for a good cause.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I already challenged you to quote my words back to me, where allegedly I said that observation is sufficient for knowledge.

Hello?

What does “complete understanding” mean? As long as one has enough information to make predictions and/or use the information as a constructor, we have sufficient understanding. And how do you find out if your “understanding” is sufficient or not? Yep, by making a prediction and attempt to verify / falsify it. What else is there?

Yes, I understand that “observation” is not identical to “enough information” or to attempts to “verify/falsify,” but the implication is there.

Care to explain how “observation confirmed by prediction and verification” IS NOT what you mean by “enough information?”

As far as I can tell, what you mean by “enough information” reduces to formal observation in the disciplined sense of confirmed by the scientific method.

Sure, you don’t mean merely observation in a general sense, but your claim still reduces to “observation” of a particular quality and type and nothing more.

I don’t see how this affects my argument other than as a request that I make a more clear stipulation of what I mean by “observation.”

Replace “observation” with “confirmed and verified observation” and the argument remains unaffected since “observation” in a general and universal sense, inclusive of all observational reality, is what the argument is premised upon.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . the act of love between consenting adults . . .

Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross that we might be saved is an act of love. A couple working through their problems, through sickness, withstanding all the temptations that the world poses, those are acts of love. Sex between two exicited people, ecstatic over the possibility of using each other? No. Love involves a giving, a surrender, with God always in the picture. Love brings joy. Sex, by itself, emptiness.