Why do so many protestants not consider church attendance an important part of their faith?

[larkin31]

You keep making a distinction between morality and other objective data. There is no distinction when we’re talking about Truth.

(Well, you make the distinction when others bring it up, yet reserve the right to use non-moral examples (like the hot/cold temperature thing) when it suits you.)

Yes, because we are talking about making judgments about objective data.

The temperature is 65F. Is that hot or cold?

The data is objective (mostly). The judgment is not. The judgment comes only from a human mind. If you want to argue that externally somewhere there is a standard that claims that 65F is either hot or cold, then go ahead.

If a poor and desperately hungry child takes an apple from the ground beneath a neighbor’s neglected tree in a neglected orchard and eats it, is it a sin? Do you want to argue that there is an objective standard that covers ALL eating of abandoned food by the desperately hungry? If so, please share that information. Is trespass always a sin? Is taking the property of another always stealing? Is intentional killing always murder? Who has ever articulated an absolute standard that governs the ethics of killing, which comes in hundreds of forms? Is it always a sin when NOT honoring a father or mother?

If you want to simply state that godhead is your absolute standard, then go ahead. I don’t need an absolute to function morally, and I think that absolutes are man-made fictions that we have to dance around and qualify and interpret endlessly anyway. Even our religious institutions produce document after document elaborating and qualify all their positions on many ethical matters–human minds making human decisions.

 

[larkin31]

We are talking about Truth.

That’s a term that you dance with and hide behind. It’s a human abstraction for a non-specific ideal.

Would you care to elaborate more specifically on any of the examples that I ask you about?

 

[PRmerger]

Yes, because we are talking about making judgments about objective data.

The temperature is 65F. Is that hot or cold?

The data is objective (mostly). The judgment is not. The judgment comes only from a human mind. If you want to argue that externally somewhere there is a standard that claims that 65F is either hot or cold, then go ahead.

Yes, some things are subjective. Others are not.

Again, here’s *my *example of the 2 people walking on the edge of the cliff. The data is objective (gravity). The judgment is also objective–if he disagrees with the Truth, that is, if his judgment is WRONG, then he will fall to his death.

 

[PRmerger]

If a poor and desperately hungry child takes an apple from the ground beneath a neighbor’s neglected tree in a neglected orchard and eats it, is it a sin?

No. But you said that something can be a sin and not a sin at the same time. So you tell me how this is not a sin, yet, paradoxially, also sinful?

(Also, still waiting to hear your response how a piece of fruit in a garden can have moral properties. )

 

[larkin31]

Yes, some things are subjective. Others are not.

Again, here’s *my *example of the 2 people walking on the edge of the cliff. The data is objective (gravity). The judgment is also objective–if he disagrees with the Truth, that is, if his judgment is WRONG, then he will fall to his death.

that’s not a moral judgment, it is a practical one based on physical measurements: don’t walk so close to the edge of a cliff such that tipping your center of gravity might cause you to fall off the edge. You as well say that “eating, shitting, pissing, and breathing are necessary to live” and you would mostly be right, but you have not made a judgment, but rather simply a cause/effect observation of physical processes.

I answered your scenario.

Now address one of mine, please.

 

[PRmerger]

that’s not a moral judgment, it is a practical one based on physical measurements: don’t walk so close to the edge of a cliff such that tipping your center of gravity might cause you to fall off the edge. You as well say that “eating, shitting, pissing, and breathing are necessary to live” and you would mostly be right, but you have not made a judgment, but rather simply a cause/effect observation of physical processes…

LOL! You’re doing it again! You allow yourself the luxury of giving non-moral examples, and then deny me the right to do the same. :whackadoo:

[SIGN1]Larkin, is saying something is hot or cold a moral judgment?[/SIGN1]

 

[larkin31]

No.

How can you disregard, “Thou shalt not steal”? The property, neglected or not, still belongs to the neighbor and was taken and consumed (destroyed) without permission and/or compensation. It is clearly a form of theft, and as such, is contrary to one of the commandments, which is, I presume, part of your un-specified “Truth”.

Your Bible declares it “sin,” and you, using your “absolute Truth”, declare it “not sin”. It seems to be both sin and not sin.

I view ethics and much of life from the idea of the yin and yang symbol: no matter where you are in the circle, one’s experiences consist of both black and white, sin and not sin, living and dying, growing and destroying, etc. At the heart of the whitest space is the black kernel; at the heart of the blackest space is the white kernel. One is never just one or the other, but always participating in the qualities of both. In this way, it is quite easy–and inevitable–that behaviors can be both sin and not sin.

 

[larkin31]

LOL! You’re doing it again! You allow yourself the luxury of giving non-moral examples, and then deny me the right to do the same. :whackadoo:

[SIGN1]Larkin, is saying something is hot or cold a moral judgment?[/SIGN1]

I keep addressing your examples, and you won’t elaborate on mine. Do you feel that you have something to lose simply by actually elaborating on your reasoning? Put your argument out there? Give us one absolute standard around “stealing” that you think determines that this poor child was not committing a sin.

Please.

 

[PRmerger]

Do you want to argue that there is an objective standard that covers ALL eating of abandoned food by the desperately hungry? If so, please share that information.

Here the objective standard that covers stealing: It is ALWAYS wrong to take something that you have no right to.

If you want to simply state that godhead is your absolute standard, then go ahead.

I proclaim it to be so.

I don’t need an absolute to function morally, and I think that absolutes are man-made fictions that we have to dance around and qualify and interpret endlessly anyway.

Quite an absolute statement, huh? (I suppose it fits with your paradigm that you are allowed certain luxuries but those you dialogue with are not. :sad_yes

And, clearly, non-religious people can be quite moral people. Heck, even the Scriptures proclaim that.

I am asking you, however, whether something can be a sin and not a sin at the same time.

Even our religious institutions produce document after document elaborating and qualify all their positions on many ethical matters–human minds making human decisions.

Indeed. Clearly there was no need to qualify the immorality of embryonic stem cell research at the Council of Hippo.

 

[larkin31]

I am asking you, however, whether something can be a sin and not a sin at the same time.

Yes. I just answered this.

Now, according to what standard was this boy not sinning, and by “not sinning” I presume that you mean, “absolutely not sinning at all” (the absolute condition of no sin)?

 

[larkin31]

Here the objective standard that covers stealing: It is ALWAYS wrong to take something that you have no right to.

Is this a quote from the Bible? Or did you come up with that phrasing yourself?

 

[PRmerger]

Yes. I just answered this.

Where?

And don’t forget my other questions:

-how can a piece of fruit be evil?
-was your hot/cold example an example of a moral judgment?

 

[PRmerger]

Is this a quote from the Bible? Or did you come up with that phrasing yourself?

[SIGN]It’s from our Catechism. [/SIGN]

2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. **There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. **This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others.191

 

[PRmerger]

Is this a quote from the Bible? Or did you come up with that phrasing yourself?

[SIGN]Here’s more![/SIGN]

“If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others”

 

[PRmerger]

Is this a quote from the Bible? Or did you come up with that phrasing yourself?

[SIGN]And…more![/SIGN]

2452 The goods of creation are destined for the entire human race. The right to private property does not abolish the universal destination of goods.

2453 The seventh commandment forbids theft. Theft is the usurpation of another’s goods against the reasonable will of the owner.

2454 Every manner of taking and using another’s property unjustly is contrary to the seventh commandment. The injustice committed requires reparation. Commutative justice requires the restitution of stolen goods. (bold mine)

 

[larkin31]

[SIGN]And…more![/SIGN]

2452 The goods of creation are destined for the entire human race. The right to private property does not abolish the universal destination of goods.

2453 The seventh commandment forbids theft. Theft is the usurpation of another’s goods against the reasonable will of the owner.

2454 Every manner of taking and using another’s property unjustly is contrary to the seventh commandment. The injustice committed requires reparation. Commutative justice requires the restitution of stolen goods. (bold mine)

The catechism is an absolute Truth? Is it therefore considered infallible also?

 

[larkin31]

Another Catholic on another forum quoted this from the current Pope in answer to a question like mine:

This brings us to the question already mentioned before, regarding the authority of the Catechism. In order to find the answer, let us first consider a bit more closely its juridical character. We could express it in this way: analogously to the new Code of Canon Law, the Catechism is de facto a collegial work; canonically, it falls under the special jurisdiction of the Pope, inasmuch as it was authorized for the whole Christian world by the Holy Father in virtue of the supreme teaching authority invested in him. . . .

This does not mean that the catechism is a sort of super-dogma, as its opponents would like to insinuate in order to cast suspicion on its as a danger to the liberty of theology. What significance the Catechism really holds for the common exercise of teaching in the Church may be learned by reading the Apostolic Constitution Fidei depositum, with which the Pope promulgated it on October 11, 1992–exactly thirty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council: “I acknowledge it [the Catechism] as a valid and legitimate tool in the service of ecclesiastical communion, as a sure norm for instruction in the faith.”

The individual doctrine which the Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already possess. The weight of the Catechism itself lies in the whole. Since it transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith and teaching of the Church [pp. 25-27].

Thus the Catechism presents the teaching of the Church without elevating the doctrinal status of those teachings beyond what they otherwise have. Consequently, one must look to other documents and to the tradition of the Church to establish the doctrinal weight of any particular point in the Catechism. Since the Catechism treats many things that not only have not been taught infallibly but which also have been proposed in the most tentative of fashions (esp. in the area of social teaching), there remains due liberty for theologians (and others) when they encounter something that has been proposed only tentatively."

I’ve put in bold the part most relevant to my question. It seems that the Catechism is partly infallible, partly not, and that the believer is expected to use both his intellect and will in applying its teachings and those teachings are subject to refinement and change over time.

Can “absolute Truth” be subject to refinement and change over time? The Catechism underwent an interesting change between 1994 and 1997 in its definition of a “lie”.

 

[KathleenGee]

PRMerger,

When people close you out, they close you out and no matter what you say, they have closed you out.

If people are that way, then it is time to move on.

 

[PRmerger]

You as well say that "eating, shitting, pissing, and breathing…

Stop being vulgar. It’s unnecessary and is the protest of the weak.

 

[PRmerger]

PRMerger,

When people close you out, they close you out and no matter what you say, they have closed you out.

If people are that way, then it is time to move on.

Yes, but I’m having so much fun!