What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

Rest assured, I do not mean to control anyone. People can do as they please. I have certain moral beliefs, and I try to follow them. This is a personal decision, but people can do what they want. :

Not the way your church looks at it, unfortunately. Of course *you* don't want to control people. The church does, and it has interest in it.

I'm sorry, but the Church isn't forcing people to do anything. Of course, if we believe there is a moral way of doing something, we want people to follow it because we believe it's best for them. But at the end of the day it is their choice, as it should be.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not the way your church looks at it, unfortunately. Of course *you* don't want to control people. The church does, and it has interest in it.

I'm sorry, but the Church isn't forcing people to do anything.

Maybe not...but it's not for lack of trying, now is it?

[Catholic_Lady]

Rest assured, I do not mean to control anyone.

I wasn't adressing you as a person, but the church - religion in general. For me it's on the same lines as creating junkies. The only difference being that the drugs are conditions so impossible to keep that everyone has to break them at some time. And now they have to go back to their dealer to get forgiveness. That's what I meant by controlling people. The controller is the concept of sin, reduced to the most basic human urges so that failure is inevitable.

Well, I am part of the Church and I am religious. ;-)

But I am glad you don't think I am trying to control anyone. I understand your assessment, but as someone who is part of the Church I can tell you that it is not about control. We want what is ultimately best for people, and to us that means following the moral path. But it is their choice.

---

It suits her just fine...Neim, clearly...... she's been telling us how well it suits her this entire time.  You've simply misread her.

In the same way that my dodgy and violent past suits and suited me just fine, despite my being a "grab a beer and chill with me" kind of guy.  We're complicated creatures, after all.

I agree.

[The Grand Nudger]

"The best for people" as, apparently, proscribed by a non-person.

What relevance or right do they have to be included in that discussion?  It's like asking a dog what's best for people.  Here you are again...fucking -claiming- morality for your beliefs. I think I'm supposed to believe, for the sake of nicety, that you don't realize it....but I don't believe that at all, at this point.

[Catholic_Lady]

Sure I can. Many things change over time. I do not believe morality is one of them. Nothing contradictory about that.

But you said that morality was one of them, in so many words. The entire point that Rhythm was responding to was your idea that things in Onan's time made it and okay idea for him to be put to death and for the people of that time to write about it. You have a remarkable ability to distance yourself from the things you literally just said.

Also, why is it that you chose not to respond to the second part of my post?

I'm sorry but I believe you misunderstood me.

The "being ok to be put to death for it" was never true. It is not ok to be put to death for this or any reason. I have said this. Writing a story where someone get's put to death though, is not immoral.

What was the second part? I'm sorry. There are a lot of posts and I can't get to all of them sometimes. Especially if they are very long posts that require a long answer.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then your god is described as an immoral being, and a foundational aspect of -your churches- moral condemnation of the acts of others in the here and now is -predicate- on the morality of an an immoral act, or an immoral description...of your god.

That is, of course, when it's not busy being predicate on transparently shitty non-reason like "natural law".

Not an opinion....a fact.

-and, if it's not okay to be put to death for any reason....as you've just stated....then why has your "good" god condemned every human being to death by means of a generational curse, or by means of the flawed design of man as expressed in his fallen nature? Or is that allegory too? If it is allegory, and if there is no reason that it';s okay for a person to be put to death...then what was the purpose, and what is the moral status, of christs crucifixion as vicarious redemption? Relief from a punishment that should have never been inflicted in the first place...by way of scapegoating?

Some "good" god you've got yourself. Some morality.

[Longhorn]

Not the way your church looks at it, unfortunately. Of course *you* don't want to control people. The church does, and it has interest in it.

I'm sorry, but the Church isn't forcing people to do anything. Of course, if we believe there is a moral way of doing something, we want people to follow it because we believe it's best for them. But at the end of the day it is their choice, as it should be.

Of course it isn't. It doesn't have to. It's enough that it indoctrinates generation after generation of children, who force their kids to go through the same.

Sects don't force people to do anything. At the end if the day, it's their choice to follow.

Emotional blackmail, threatening with eternal pain and controlling people's sexual urges is what's best for them? Lying about things you cannot possibly know for your personal gain is best for people?

Maybe it works out for some.

It infuriates me how you fail to see how harmful your church's doctrine is. Maybe it's my personal bias, right.

But since you're a moral objectivist, is threatening with torture moral?

[Catholic_Lady]

No, not "unsatisfactory", stop it.  You have been plainly and repeatedly contradictory....which to be completely honest, isn't what irritates me at all.  I hold contradictory things to be morally true myself.  The difference...is that I'll own up to that without reservation.

Oh, Onanism isn't the reason, btw, the displeasure of god at the act as expressed in the narrative isn't the basis for your moral condemnation?....hmn,  have you checked the catechism or catholic answers.....on that one?

Ah, gotcha. Sorry.

If I thought I was being contradictory, I would admit to it. I do not think I have contradicted myself.

Here is the Catechism's reasons of why contraception is immoral: (note, it does not simply say "because Onan got killed for it")

2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is "on the side of life,"151 teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life."152 "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act."153
2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154 "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility."155
2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:

When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156
2369 "By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man's exalted vocation to parenthood."157
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.158 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:159

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.160
2371 "Let all be convinced that human life and the duty of transmitting it are not limited by the horizons of this life only: their true evaluation and full significance can be understood only in reference to man's eternal destiny."161
2372 The state has a responsibility for its citizens' well-being. In this capacity it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful information, but certainly not by authoritarian, coercive measures. The state may not legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses, who have the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children.162 In this area, it is not authorized to employ means contrary to the moral law.

[LastPoet]

It evolves?

[Catholic_Lady]

Yes, but listen carefully. I never said nothing is subjective. I said morality is not subjective. Since there is nothing immoral with the way people spoke, wrote, and told stories back then, you can't claim that I am contradicting myself.

He doesn't need to claim that when your unspoken premise is that morality was different back then. You impeach your own argument with your own words.

I'm sorry, I do not see where I made an unspoken premise that morality was different. Throughout this whole thread I have been repeating over and over that morality is the same.

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I'm sorry, but the Church isn't forcing people to do anything.

Maybe not...but it's not for lack of trying, now is it?

I can assure we are not trying to force anyone to do anything. It is their choice.

---

"The best for people" as, apparently, proscribed by a non-person.

What relevance or right do they have to be included in that discussion?  It's like asking a dog what's best for people.  Here you are again...fucking -claiming- morality for your beliefs.  I think I'm supposed to believe, for the sake of nicety, that you don't realize it....but I don't believe that at all, at this point.

Everyone has opinions on morality. We are no different. We have certain opinions about what is right and what is wrong, just like everyone else, and if people want to follow us, they can. If not, that's their choice. No forcing. :-)