Why I am not a Christian

[mlchance]

You’re right, the analogy is slightly flawed, but my point was that masturbation is no more harmful than playing video games…

…but you still haven’t demonstrated how masturbation is bad.

And you’ve not demonstrated that either video games or masturbation are incapable of causing harm.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[VociMike]

And you’ve not demonstrated that either video games or masturbation are incapable of causing harm.

– Mark L. Chance.

Masturbation (male, at least) is tied in with a very distorted, utilitarian, objectifying and self-serving view of women. I speak from past experience.

 

[Bear_Claw]

Is it my imagination or have there been a couple of other threads from newbies explaining why they aren’t Catholic anymore? Just odd that this would be the subject lately from more then one new member.

Yeah Deb, I think you are right. In my experience, some of the newbies are actually regular established forum members that make a different login name. Something different that they can start fresh with their new status.
Sockpuppets.

When you come to this realisation, it’s quiet the immense step in your life, and if you were used to hanging here, you usually feel that you need to announce it here. It’s like the frist step to come out of the closet, so to speak.

 

[StevenFrancis]

Any comments?

Fairly typical list of rationalizations. I used to have a similar list myself. Always saddening to hear, of course. Other than that, what is there to say? Would vigorous argument do anything for you? My guess is you’ve heard it all before. The problem is, you haven’t felt it. I’m not sure how that happens. It did happen to me. I am happy to share my faith with anyone who will listen. I’m more of a witness than an apologist though. You sound as if you’re itching for some controversy with an apologist. I’m sure there are many here to oblige you. I will simply offer this, my brother. May the Holy Spirit lead you to the Father through the loving and unfailing heart of His Son, Jesus Christ. I will pray for your conversion.

Peace to you,

Steven

 

[diggerdomer]

Wow. Look at all these postings. And the person who posted the original message has yet to post his/her second. I’d really enjoy hearing back from him or her.

 

[cpayne]

Wow. Look at all these postings. And the person who posted the original message has yet to post his/her second. I’d really enjoy hearing back from him or her.

Could it be that the OP was simply throwing a grenade?

 

[PeterJ]

Yeah Deb, I think you are right. In my experience, some of the newbies are actually regular established forum members that make a different login name. Something different that they can start fresh with their new status.
Sockpuppets.

When you come to this realisation, it’s quiet the immense step in your life, and if you were used to hanging here, you usually feel that you need to announce it here. It’s like the frist step to come out of the closet, so to speak.

Yes I am a regular on this forum, I used to post under a different account name. I changed username mainly because some of my older posts show a profound ignorance.

Anyway I have relalized that this thread probably needs splitting, I may do that in the near future. I still welcome any comments.

 

[Wowbagger]

I only want to respond to one point–partly because the Church teaching on contraception and masturbation has been so thoroughly explicated elsewhere on this forum, partly because the writer has pretty clearly never sat down and listened to a half-decent presentation of the Church’s (logical, formally valid, sound) argument against anti-marital sexual activity (contraception, masturbation, etc.), and mainly because I would rather dedicate the time to the response I owe to diggerdomer in the Obama thread (I haven’t forgotten!).

However, I have read Clifford. Loved his article. It was presented on the first day of my Philosophy of the Person class by perhaps the hardestcore, feistiest Catholic thinker I have yet encountered. Clifford is exactly right.

You aren’t. Belief in the Catholic Church is a logical, rationally arrived-at belief. Now, some of your other Christian sects have rejected reason, but the CC is one of the last institutions on this Earth that truly believes in it. I found it difficult to look at the various arguments regarding God and His nature, the historical testimony we have from the first century A.D., and the various atheistic (or Protestant, or Muslim) counter-arguments and not come to the conclusion that the fact that Christ was the son of God who died, rose, and founded a Church that continues today at its seat in Rome is about as certain and well-founded as the fact that the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake happened.

Many people believe in the Church based on the argument from authority: some very smart people are Catholic and believe X, Y, and Z, so you should, too. (This is much like the many people who believe in the moon landing based on the argument from authority, or the theory of relativity based on the argument from authority.) This is perfectly legitimate, if an imperfect mode of belief. However, serious examination of Catholic and Christian apologetics reveals a rich, deep, and largely undeniable series of historical and moral truths that all reasonable people must accept.

Clifford can have no bone with my Catholicism. Now, if I became an atheist, then Clifford might have a problem with my motives.

 

[ishii]

PeterJ wrote:

“*For these reasons I have renounced my faith. Any comments? *”

Why did you post this? is it, A) because you want to convince those on this forum to renounce their faith as you did? or B) because you want us to convince you otherwise? C) some other reason? (this is a serious question).

Ishii

 

[ishii]

Exalt wrote:

“I don’t believe that there’s a moral Governor sitting in the sky judging what I do. However, just because I’m not afraid of supernatural retribution doesn’t mean that I don’t do good things or not-do bad things. In terms of actual scientific studies, there is no correlation between good behavior and religiosity, or bad behavior and secularism. Both our reasons for being good come from different places than religion.”

On the contrary, the history of the 20th century is in many ways a tale of the triumph of secular atheist ideology. If you want to know the result, read about the history of the holocaust, the forced starvation of millions of Ukranians, the Cambodian holocaust, and the reign of Mao in China, to name a few. If you want to see atheism in action today, go to North Korea and check out what a great set up they have.

Ishii

 

[fellowChristian]

PeterJ –

Since you now have time on your hands, might I suggest a book?

*** C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity***

 

[deb1]

He wasn’t addressing the position of Sola Scriptura. He was addressing the Catholic position on the ultimate truth of scripture:

“The inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, **we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth **which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confined to the Sacred Scriptures.” (CCC Paragraph 107)

I believe you when you say that you are good!

As you are not new on these forums then you know that Catholics believe in the natural laws. So, the fact that an atheist even cares about right or wrong is proof that there is a God.

Yesterday, my well fed cocker spaniel dug under our coop and killed 13 young hens. She didn’t eat the chickens. She just went on a bloody, killing spree. Is my dog bad? Not really. She is following generations of instinct that has been bred into her being. I can’t really call her actions, from her point of view, moral or immoral.

There is really no reason that the actions of humans should be considered moral or immoral unless something is imprinted on our minds that make us view our actions in the light of morality.

 

[Exalt]

I believe you when you say that you are good!

As you are not new on these forums then you know that Catholics believe in the natural laws. So, the fact that an atheist even cares about right or wrong is proof that there is a God.

Yesterday, my well fed cocker spaniel dug under our coop and killed 13 young hens. She didn’t eat the chickens. She just went on a bloody, killing spree. Is my dog bad? Not really. She is following generations of instinct that has been bred into her being. I can’t really call her actions, from her point of view, moral or immoral.

There is really no reason that the actions of humans should be considered moral or immoral unless something is imprinted on our minds that make us view our actions in the light of morality.

Deb, You make an old argument. You say that because atheists believe there is such a thing as right and wrong, that means that there must be objective moral laws. You say that, by definition, all laws require a law-giver, and that law-giver must be God.

I structure my rebuttal as follows:

Reply #1 Just because human beings have developed a moral compass doesn’t mean that it must have been designed by a higher intelligence. It could have (and probably did) evolve naturally. (Elaboration below)

Reply #2 Even if your argument is valid (and it’s not), it just points to a higher intelligence, and not specifically the Christian God. (Elaboration below)

Reply #3 I address your implicit argument that if God doesn’t exist, there’s no reason to be moral.

Here goes:

Reply #1 Before I begin, let me set up my defense with a few definitions. There’s a difference between proscriptive laws, such as the ones given by governments, and descriptive laws, such as the ones enumerated by scientists. Descriptive laws merely observe the world around us and then come up with language to express certain patterns, whereas proscriptive laws are rules given by human beings that direct human societies or behavior. For example, laws regarding interstate commerce are proscriptive laws. The law of gravity is a descriptive law. Certainly, proscriptive laws require a lawgiver by definition, and in our example of interstate commerce it might be the state or national government. However, descriptive laws - though enumerated by certain specific scientists who discovered the particular pattern in nature - do not have a law giver. There is no “department of gravity” that checks up on the objects floating around in the universe, making sure that everyone is obeying the law. On the contrary, we simply use the word “law” to describe patterns in nature. It is short sighted to jump to the conclusion that “every law has a law-giver.” The Christian apologist merely uses wordplay to swap out our definition of “descriptive law” for “proscriptive law” at a time that is convenient for him or her. It’s not a reasonable argument.

So, can we categorize the principles of right and wrong into proscriptive or descriptive law? Well, we certainly have civil laws that govern human behavior. Murder, for example, carries a penalty of many years in prison - or even death - if convicted in court. We certainly give civil laws based on morality. But on the other hand, we obviously don’t feel hatred towards murderers because of the written law. We would feel that regardless of if we were living in a society with laws against murder or not. I think it would be accurate to say that almost every human being feels anger towards the act of murder, and most would only ever consider taking the life of another human being only in the most extreme of circumstances, such as war or in self-defense.

Christians have said that this must mean there is an invisible law on our heart. Well, it seems to me that most human beings do indeed feel great emotions when confronted with certain moral offenses. This is such a sweeping phenomenon in human societies that calling it a “law” might be accurate. Furthermore, it is obviously a very good law to have! A society characterized by murder would quickly destroy itself. But, just be clear, the idea that all-human-beings-have-a-moral-compass would only be a *descriptive *law, such as the law of gravity. We are merely describing something in the Universe in terms of a “law.” Once again, it’s fallacious to swap out the *descriptive *definition of law for a proscriptive definition of a law.

So, as I stated above, I agree that there is something imprinted on our minds that makes us feel outrage when murder occurs. It’s clear, obvious, and scientifically verifiable. Indeed, there are scientists who are actively working to figure out how exactly human beings developed this human ‘moral compass’, but just because we may not know exactly how human beings developed it doesn’t mean that God *must *have created it. That’s no more sophisticated an argument than the 2nd century Greeks believing that because there is no rational explanation for lightning, it must origin with the gods. There is certainly an active scientific community looking at this question, and they have many rational, non-theistic explanations.

Continued below…

 

[Exalt]

Continued from above…

#2 Furthermore, even if your argument that because we have a moral compass it must come from a higher being is valid (and it most certainly is not, as my arguments above have demonstrated), your argument does not prove that the “higher being” is God. It could have been Athena or the Titans or Vishnu or Krishna. It could be an extraterrestrial life form traveling between the stars, or time travelers from the future, or beings from another dimension. All your argument demonstrates if is true (and it most certainly is not, as I have demonstrated above) is that there is some intelligence higher than a human being that designed human morality - not specifically the Christian God. It could be anything from aliens to Zeus, and every mythical being in between.

#3 It is clear that part of your argument includes the idea that if there is no God, then why be moral? Well, you certainly aren’t arguing that you are good because God will punish you if you are not good, right? Is the reason you’re kind to others because you’re afraid God will throw you into the eternal lake of fire forever and ever? Is the reason you don’t go on a murderous rampage because you know that if you do, you might not get to celebrate a billion birthdays with Jesus? No, of course not. You, personally, would be good no matter if you believed in God, reincarnation, Zenu (the intergalatic overlord), or even if you believed in no God or gods. So, I don’t really think you’re arguing that.

What you are trying to argue is that because I am still good, that must be evidence of a “moral law” on my heart. The Christian apologist exclaims “every law has a lawgiver!” but he fails to realize that he’s actually just played a little word-definition swap. He has swapped the definition of law in this case from descriptive (observing objectively and scientifically that, “it is apparent that every human being is generally inclined to do good” to a degree that it would be called a law of human nature) to proscriptive (laws given by societies to govern behavior have law-givers; the moral compass is a law of human nature; therefore, there must have been an intelligent law giver).

Conclusion: In reality, of course, all you’ve merely offered is that there must be no other explanation for the development of human morality *other *than divine intervention. But that’s really is no more sophisticated than those ancient Greeks when they looked at lightning and incorrectly assumed it must have been divine anger. The development of human morality is a very active topic among evolutionary psychologists, evolutionary biology, archeologists and anthropologists, with thousands of published works investigating how it evolved naturally (e.g., without super-natural intervention).

 

[deb1]

So, as I stated above, I agree that there is something imprinted on our minds that makes us feel outrage when murder occurs. It’s clear, obvious, and scientifically verifiable. Indeed, there are scientists who are actively working to figure out how exactly human beings developed this human ‘moral compass’, but just because we may not know exactly how human beings developed it doesn’t mean that God *must *have created it. That’s no more sophisticated an argument than the 2nd century Greeks believing that because there is no rational explanation for lightning, it must origin with the gods. There is certainly an active scientific community looking at this question, and they have many rational, non-theistic explanations.

Continued below…

I haven’t gotten to the second post yet. But so far I am following you. I would like to point out that I didn’t say that my arguement was sophisticated. It is correct just the same. Interesting that scientist are trying to understand what Catholics have known all along.

If I don’t respond to the second post today, it is because I have a family to feed. I don’t want you to think that I am being rude to you.

I believe most things can be explained by science. That doesn’t mean that God isn’t behind the lightening or gravity or the expansion of the universe or the general moral compass of mankind. You do realize that a logical, rational explanation is not proof that there isn’t a God?

 

[eyeofliberty]

1. Catholic moral teaching is ridiculous:

3.1 The Catholic teaching on contraception is dangerous, absurd and logically unsupportable.
I defy any serious scholar to produce a valid argument, from plausible premises that proves contraception to be immoral. It simply cannot be done.

3.2 The Catholic teaching on masturbation is equally logically unsupportable, equally ridiculous and puts people under great pressure for no good reason. Again no scholar to my knowledge has produced a sound argument to its detriment – don’t send me links to Aquinas.

3.3 The principle of double effect in some instances seems an absurd way of working around dogmatic rules e.g. in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.

Your problems with the Catholic moral teachings have to do with trying to practice those same moral teachings in the Judeo-Calvinist Secular West. Children were once considered blessings but are now grave financial burdens. Don’t get lost on cryies of “over-population!”, because European “Christians” are dying out.

It is Catholic teaching that pornography and masturbation are worse than natural fornication. During the Catholic Middle Ages, prostitution was common and tolerated by the Catholic Church (pornography was not). It is preferable for a man in the eyes of God and man to seek out a whore or prostitute as a release of his passions over the unhealthy and more sinful means of masturbation. The release of a man’s seed is a gift to man’s partner - woman. It is very harmful to men, both mentally and spiritually, to remove the woman from this God-created act. I can not even begin to explain how purityrannical (puritanical) our society is when it comes to morals and how lax the Catholic Middle Ages were. But when it was tolerant of certain immoralities, it was always the least harmful to the human person.

A direct abortion is the deliberate killing of the child. For ectopic pregnancies, Catholics could have the child removed from the Fallopian tube, cervix, ovaries, or the abdomen and have hospital care for the child and if the child dies because it is not developed enough, it is not a direct abortion. Link

 

[cazayoux]

(Side note: elements of Hinduism are much older than the earliest elements of Judeo-Christianity. So, Hinduism would actually be the “oldest joke”.)

Not so.

Judaism was founded by Abraham about 4,000 years ago.
Hinduism developed about 1,500 B.C.
Buddhism split from Hinduism about 500 B.C.

michel

 

[Exalt]

Exalt wrote:

“I don’t believe that there’s a moral Governor sitting in the sky judging what I do. However, just because I’m not afraid of supernatural retribution doesn’t mean that I don’t do good things or not-do bad things. In terms of actual scientific studies, there is no correlation between good behavior and religiosity, or bad behavior and secularism. Both our reasons for being good come from different places than religion.”

On the contrary, the history of the 20th century is in many ways a tale of the triumph of secular atheist ideology. If you want to know the result, read about the history of the holocaust, the forced starvation of millions of Ukranians, the Cambodian holocaust, and the reign of Mao in China, to name a few. If you want to see atheism in action today, go to North Korea and check out what a great set up they have.

Ishii

First of all, I advocate rational, objective, scientific thought and reject things like superstition or prejudice. If you’re suggesting that the genocides of the 20th and 21st century were the direct result of atheism, you’re wrong. First of all, atheism is just a lack of belief in the Christian God. People have all sorts of insane ideologies that they can fill their heads with that just so happen to not include the existence of a Christian God. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, extreme patriotism, prejudice towards certain economic groups, as well as religious hatred have all been grounds for genocide over the years. Each of those things are wholly irrational and completely unscientific. They reek of obstinate belief in spite of a lack of evidence, which is completely antithetical to the objective rationalism of secular humanists and atheists such as myself.

Besides, if we want to get in a game where we list atrocities committed by theists and atheists, y o (“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials”) a r e g o *(“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases”) n g t o l o s e.

 

[Exalt]

Not so.

Judaism was founded by Abraham about 4,000 years ago.
Hinduism developed about 1,500 B.C.
Buddhism split from Hinduism about 500 B.C.

michel

Well, Scientologists claim that Xenu put thetan-souls into the earth 75,000 years ago, but that doesn’t make it true. Archeologists are working on digs in India recovering ancient artificants pointing towards the very beginnings of “hinduism” that date back to 3000 BCE or so. Judaism, however, has no solid archeological history until much later. There’s no evidence that Abraham or Moses even existed, and even if they did exist at the time it is said they existed, Hinduism was flourishing ages before Judaism had even left the tiniest historical footprint.

 

[Exalt]

It is Catholic teaching that pornography and masturbation are worse than natural fornication. During the Catholic Middle Ages, prostitution was common and tolerated by the Catholic Church (pornography was not). It is preferable for a man in the eyes of God and man to seek out a whore or prostitute as a release of his passions over the unhealthy and more sinful means of masturbation. The release of a man’s seed is a gift to man’s partner - woman. It is very harmful to men, both mentally and spiritually, to remove the woman from this God-created act. I can not even begin to explain how purityrannical (puritanical) our society is when it comes to morals and how lax the Catholic Middle Ages were. But when it was tolerant of certain immoralities, it was always the least harmful to the human person.

You do realize how ridiculous this sounds to the nonbeliever, right? You’re not even explaining or defending anything, you’re just affirming what the original poster has already said: that the Catholic Church is obsessed with masturbation. Neither have you demonstrated how masturbation is actually harmful.