What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Randy Carson]

... Something else to add - if morality comes from trying to do what is best for society so that our species survives, what will it mean when/if overpopulation of humans becomes a major problem? ...

I don't think that morality is a question of what is best for society so that our species survives.  But if it were, it would mean that you Catholics should stop breeding like rabbits because overpopulation is a serious problem.  It is YOUR morality that is a problem.  Atheism is not a source for such immorality.

Wait a second...folks are usually fond of quoting the statistics which point to how many Catholics are using artificial birth control despite the Church's teaching that it is intrinsically evil.

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

So, how is it that we are "breeding like rabbits" if we're all contracepting allegedly?


This is a clear example of one of those "damned if we do, damned if we don't" things I referenced in my "Thoughts on Atheism and Apologetics" thread.