What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Silver]

I think God created the concept, and let nature take its coarse.

If god is prone to allowing things to take its own course, could the same not be said of homosexuality.  If god created everything, surely he also created homosexuals.  And is everything that god creates not good?

[Catholic_Lady]

Condoning atrocities perpetrated by the church does not bode well for you or your religion.

Not to mention the fact that there are any child molesters at all involved with an organization which claims to have The Objective Moral Truths.

Catholicism does not condone molestation. Neither does it condone covering it up. The Catholics who molested children as well as those who covered it up were going against Church teaching.

There are bad people in every group. Catholics are no different.

[FatAndFaithless]

I do believe we can judge a particular action as being good or bad... we do it all the time when making day to day decisions and when trying to figure out how to talk to others or handle others, etc.

I agree that we do it all the time, but what is your basis from which to work in determining if an action is moral or immoral? Is it taking into account the action's impact on human wellbeing, or how the action relates to the catechism of the church?

[Whateverist]

The fact still remains, stealing is wrong. Period. But in scenario 1 the man probably has a lot more darkness in his heart than in scenario 2. While stealing is still wrong, I'm willing to bet his culpability is greatly lessened in the second scenario verses the first.

Disagree. Morality is entirely situational and almost always messy in this way. The man who does not steal your drugs for his ailing child has failed morally by omission. Period. The man who takes what belongs to you takes upon himself that fault in order to do what is more urgently required morally. I'm not a big fan of cataloging do's and don'ts. It has its place in child rearing but in the end you shouldn't need such a list. Besides it will never be complete or easily applicable.

[Silver]

Well, it's what I personally believe. 

Not a very logical argument.

[Longhorn]

Well they still don't have to live life like that. It's their decision, as it should be. It is not right to force it on anyone. If you read my earlier posts, you will see that I was not comparing the 2. Merely commenting on a statement someone made about not acting on impulses.

Um, yes you are, exactly by equating the impulse of pedophilia to the impulse of homosexuality. They are fundamentally different. Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation. Homosexuality is.

You ARE comparing the two. You're saying the impulses are the same in principle, which they're not.

[Catholic_Lady]

Bringing in pedophilia to the discussion is entirely irrelevant though, as we're speaking about consenting adults.

That's fine. The poster could have specified this. All this poster did was tell me how horrible it was to ever say that someone shouldn't act on their sexual impulses. I brought up pedophilia as an example of a scenario where I'm sure everyone here would agree that it would be appropriate to say someone shouldn't act on sexual impulses.

[Silver]

Catholicism does not condone molestation. Neither does it condone covering it up. The Catholics who molested children as well as those who covered it up were going against Church teaching.

There are bad people in every group. Catholics are no different.

Strangely, though, those "bad" people are still part of the church, still in situations where they can harm more children.  That is the way of the catholic church, to shuffle the priests around and pray that the problems go away.  The problems never go away.

[Longhorn]

Bringing in pedophilia to the discussion is entirely irrelevant though, as we're speaking about consenting adults.

That's fine. The poster could have specified this. All this poster did was tell me how horrible it was to ever say that someone shouldn't act on their sexual impulses. I brought up pedophilia as an example of a scenario where I'm sure everyone here would agree that it would be appropriate to say someone shouldn't act on sexual impulses.

Attraction to same sex =/= attraction to children

Pedophilia is not the same sexual impulse as homosexuality, and it isn't a sexual orientation. It's a disorder, one which always invariably causes significant distress to the sufferer. It's irrelevant to the discussion on sexuality.

[Whateverist]

Hey Kitan, we all hold positions which are indefensible.  We can either remain blissfully unaware of them or we can frankly admit them to be our own core belief.  I find it refreshingly honest.  (Of course, at this point, I would stop promoting what it is I believe unless asked.)