What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

The notion that sex is sacred makes sense to me because it is the act that brings new life into the world. That's not its only purpose (love and bonding are another purpose), but it still is one of its purposes. An act that can create new life is a sacred act because life is sacred. And sacred things should be handled with care and kept as their pure, authentic selves. 

I know you don't agree, and that is perfectly fine. But there you have it. Those are my reasons. 

Well I do agree with you that life is sacred....but that statement isn't going to get us to your conclusion.   You've imposed an unspoken definition of a "pure authentic self" and an unjustified requirement that sex must be treated according to this nebulous attribute.  My fists were made for beating the shit out of other living creatures (among many other things)......that doesn't make it moral for me to beat the shit out of other living creatures.  My eyes are sunk deeper in my skull and my brow ridge is more pronounced and my body more massive than yours, male to female, because I'm the "violence model".  If I stay true to my "pure, authentic self"...that would include senseless violence and yes...sportfucking for the fun of it...as moral behavior....."good" things.  

But our disagreement on the way the ball rolls down the hill is only of secondary importance to me, in this response.  Do you see how you just justified your position?  Notice you didn't refer to god once (even though I actually tried to get you to inject god into it)?  That's how -I- justify my moral statements as well.  I have been attempting, throughout this entire thread, to do better than just -tell you- how I do it, but to get you to do it yourself.   I make an initial value statement, and then -attempt- to follow from there reasonably.  Sometimes I, like you, like anyone, might not actually get the "reasonable" bit right....but that's okay, because it's not -actually-  a requirement.  You and I make these determinations the same way.

I appreciate your assessment and questions.

By "pure and authentic self" I just mean that the act itself remains in it's original form without being changed in order to render it infertile. I understand your comparison about the function of your fists. But since sex is sacred (because it creates something sacred), it must be handled with much more honor and care than a fist. Also, in your examples you speak about things that are immoral... beating creatures and acting violently. Those awful things are not good comparisons to the creation of new human life.

*gods disgust for Onanism...btw (a catchall term that would come to include many forms of contraception), he killed Onan for it..struck him dead where he stooped....this is one of the things the catholic church points to in it's justification of their position on contraception.  God is unambiguous, contraception is so disgusting to his sight that he is willing to kill you, on the spot, for attempting it....and all Onan did was pull out of his dead brothers wife, btw....lol.  Let me repeat that one more time, in bold italics..so it sinks in:

Your god is willing to kill a person for pulling out of his dead brother's wife.

If you believe the story about Onan in the OT was written word for word, literally as it happened, then yes, you are correct about the last sentence there. As I said, I believe the OT was written allegorically. I believe the point of this story was to teach that contraception is immoral, and that's an important point. But I do not believe God literally "killed" Onan, or that a man named Onan even existed. I cannot speak for those who think otherwise, though.