watchamadoodle Wrote:Unlike Catholicism that makes an imaginary being, God, the ground of all good, I claim that each person is a ground of good. We have discussions, elections, etc. to unify our personalized notions of good when necessary for collective action.
Hmm. Still don't know what you mean by the word "good", but I appreciate your attempt at describing a position of the Catholic tradition. If there are personalized notions of "goodness", what is yours? What is it about a thing, an act, whatever, that when you observe it or consider it, you make the judgment that it is good. WHAT is it? What do you actually DISCUSS in order to unify your personalized notions for collective actions? So far, it doesn't seem like you discuss goodness at all. It seems that there is some mistaken and implicit understanding that we all mean the same thing when we say the word good. For people who so readily could judge that something as silly as god is so obviously not good, I expected to see a robust description of what "good" means. If you don't, then what the heck is actually being said in this thread?
And just FYI, Catholic teaching regarding ethics and morality begins anthropologically, i.e. it begins with goodness in human beings and the things they observe and do and encounter. If you are happy beating up straw men, you are certainly free to keep right on doing that. But, if you want an actual rational exercise, maybe you could try and formulate what you mean by the word "good" or "goodness".
