The Struggle to do Good

[brokenreflector]

To turn you currently weak argument into a strong one, you'd have to first exhaustively list every single possible naturalistic force that would lead to you stopping your behavior.

I've already addressed this.

If evolution is more or less true, and if it's not guided by a moral agent, and if we're the products of evolution, then it makes little sense for me to possess this urge to not look at nude photos of unmarried women. To be clear, I do have a sex drive and I do want to look at pornography, but there's this underlying current (i.e. urge) beneath that drive telling me not to and that it's wrong. Why would an unguided and natural process that increases the survivability of species instill such an urge? That makes very little sense.

Also, I've grown up during a time when sexual images, acts, and talk are widely disseminated. Society isn't influencing me to not look at pornography. It's actually influencing me to look at it. Yet, I still have this urge to not look at it.

So if this urge isn't from nature or society then that seems to point to something transcendent and in Christianity it's called the Holy Spirit.

---

First, I never mentioned masturbation in my original post, so I'm not sure where that came from.

Second, after careful introspection, I can honestly say that this urge to not look at pornographic material isn't from society. In fact, society seems to be trying to influence me to ignore this urge that I have. The media is full of sexual content, innuendo, and people telling others that there's nothing wrong with pornography or masturbation (since you guys brought that up).

Let me add however that this is my own experience. I'm sure there are others who have been brought up in very religious households or who were raised during a time when sexual promiscuity, porn, and masturbation were considered morally wrong.

If you’re watching porn and not masturbating, you’re doing it wrong.

Boru

I never said that.

Dayum. The reading comprehension of the average poster here is very poor.

[GUBU]

So, what you're saying is, you'd rather be fucked by the biggest dick in existence?

Don't you get sick of following the evil in your mind?

What no one said isn't evil, blunt yes but not evil. Will I tell you what evil is, a christian deciding that the jews of Europe must die because they're "inferior", a jewish political party deciding that the muslim descendants of their ancestors should not have any rights in Israel, a hindu neo-nazi deciding that all muslim Indians should die, a muslim mullah deciding that a woman should be beheaded because she decided that christianity was better than islam, a christian that peddles fake AIDS cures and inveigles his way into the inner circle of a nation's AIDS taskforce.

I could go on.

---

Ah the old 'I used to do bad stuff then I found Jesus'.

I suppose it's out of the question you did bad stuff because you were an arsehole?


Obvious troll is obvious.

He didn't even do bad stuff, playing the pink bagpipes isn't anything bad, apart from in a few limited circumstances, e.g. whipping out little Brianey in a crowded room full of children. Then it's very bad.

[brokenreflector]

Will I tell you what evil is, a christian deciding that the jews of Europe must die because they're "inferior"

Prove to me that's evil.

a muslim mullah deciding that a woman should be beheaded because she decided that christianity was better than islam

Where's your proof that this is evil?

[Deesse23]

Ah, a worshipper of WLC who also fancies divine command theory. How surprising and original.

[GrandizerII]

I used to view pornography, but I stopped because of God's prompting, and I believe this prompting, pull, or urge can be used as evidence for God's existence. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I didn't even grow up in a religious home.

Which country were you raised in? Country, culture, tradition, these matter as well.

If societal pressures or my upbringing did not produce this urge, then what or who produced it?

Why are we pretending things like religion haven't imposed such pressures for the sake of such things as the "sanctity" of marriage (which throughout history has been of immense benefit to society)?

[Abaddon_ire]

Will I tell you what evil is, a christian deciding that the jews of Europe must die because they're "inferior"

Prove to me that's evil.

a muslim mullah deciding that a woman should be beheaded because she decided that christianity was better than islam

Where's your proof that this is evil?

Can you tell us how you reached this position of amoral failure?

[The Grand Nudger]

This thread has only gotten stranger since the first page. Which didn't seem possible on the first page.

It' just not strange, OP, for human beings to experience feelings of guilt. Certainly not strange enough to wonder, on account of feeling guilt, whether it's being beamed into our heads by some prude ghost.

It would be stranger if you didn't feel guilt or embarrassment. For instance, at imploring others to prove, to you, that genocide and beheadings over apostasy is evil. Something like that might warrant concern about the sorts of things god crams into our skulls.

If your contention is that a god caused you to notice the bad in something that you've done, there can be no argument over the existence of bad things™. It's contained within your claim, focused on some point of minutiae about how and when you touch yourself. You cannot cogently ask to have The Bad™ proven to you, when you are asserting it's existence as the content of a divine missive.

This is where we take a breath and suggest that the question was performative, that it doesn't reflect your position or attitude. You may even think that genocide and head chopping is bad because a god said so. Others, especially here, are going to think it's bad for other reasons. Boiling this issue down to you asking others how they determine that things are bad aside from having a god send us messages. It would be awfully useful to have a way to determine good and bad aside from god directly communicating as much to a person..no matter what the subject is. We're not all on gods cc list, as you claim to be.

So, with that in mind, if god weren't telling you not to look at titties, how would you (and how did you) answer these questions, which you posed to us?

In an attempt to uncover the source of this urge, I remember asking myself various questions like if two consenting adults choose to have sex on camera and purposely disseminate the footage to the public, then in what way am I wronging anyone by viewing the footage in the privacy of my own home? Or perhaps an even better example would be an unmarried woman who photographs herself nude, and then purposely disseminates the photo to the public. Why am I being urged to not look at such material?

How are you wronging someone, and why would you be urged not to look at porn?

[Rhizomorph13]

There are many forces within our society that indicate that porn is not a good thing. Even some secular sources will agree that porn is not good because it diminishes your appreciation for the girls that will actually fuck you and HOW they will fuck you i.e. NO most woman do not like a quick slap to their bald privates! That urge to NOT probably come from you picking up signals from the society around you and your ideas of what Christ wants.

I'm not going to resort to name calling.

I hate that shit, usually...

Hopefully you'll engage in discourse with the more cool-headed on here and arrive at a more reasonable conclusion that the thoughts in your head come form you and not a space wizard.

[Shuffle]

I've already addressed this.

If evolution is more or less true, and if it's not guided by a moral agent, and if we're the products of evolution, then it makes little sense for me to possess this urge to not look at nude photos of unmarried women. To be clear, I do have a sex drive and I do want to look at pornography, but there's this underlying current (i.e. urge) beneath that drive telling me not to and that it's wrong. Why would an unguided and natural process that increases the survivability of species instill such an urge? That makes very little sense.

Also, I've grown up during a time when sexual images, acts, and talk are widely disseminated. Society isn't influencing me to not look at pornography. It's actually influencing me to look at it. Yet, I still have this urge to not look at it.

So if this urge isn't from nature or society then that seems to point to something transcendent and in Christianity it's called the Holy Spirit.

I see you conveniently skipped over huge portions in my last reply to you. Why is that? A lot of what I said would be a good reply to this last reply from you, but I won't repeat what I've already said.

The fact that you said, "If evolution is more or less true," instantly disqualifies you from making any judgments about evolution whatsoever. The ignorance that flows from that statement is palpable. I recommend reading a beginner's introduction to evolution, like The Selfish Gene, to clear up your obvious misunderstandings.

Here's a question. Pedophilia does not increase the survivability of a species. Socially, it is one of the most looked down thing one can be, and for good reason. So there's no evolutionary benefit, and no pressures from society, so why are people pedophiles? Is the ol' devil overpowering God? God is all powerful, so I doubt anything can overpower him. If we use your own standard, God must have given these pedophilic urges to these people, just as he's given other urges to you.

[The Grand Nudger]

Having a brain and sexual impulses is the advantageous part, but there's no such thing as a free lunch and there are a wide range of maladaptive behaviors and abilities (and those behaviors change with time) that having a brain and sexual desires also happens to confer. Plants are mechanically incapable of pedophilia, and if pedophilia is a bad thing..then it's a bad thing that plants don't even have to worry about doing by accident. Food for thought. Literally..we eat them, and then some of us who eat them go from that to pedophilia.

I don't think that any debate about evolution is required for this convo, though.

Moral agency can be entirely dissociated from nature. Perhaps our moral sense is, in some meaningful way, non-natural™. That still wouldn't suggest, imply, or demonstrate that our moral sense was an external message, let alone the external message of a god. Perhaps moral agency has no survival benefit...but is that why we do it, if so? To survive?