What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Mudhammam]

This is kind of a spinoff of the WHY BE GOOD thread.

The question I have for atheists, isn't "why by good." I think it's simplistic and deeply flawed to think that the only reason to "be good" is to avoid Hell. And of course, I believe that anyone can be a good person regardless of beliefs.

The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?

Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral. Let's use murder as an obvious example. So if murder is wrong, where did this law come from? If this is a universal truth, where did this truth come from and who/what determined it to be what it is?

You can say things are good because God made them that way, and that anything God does is instrinsically good because God is by nature good.
But this is just circular reasoning. Why not just say that things are, by nature, good, without bringing up the issue of God at all?
Of course, it's difficult to understand how this could be established, and it seems more likely, given that we just happen to think we know what things are instrinsically good, that things aren't instrinsically good but rather good because that is the value we have assigned to things that give us feelings of pleasure.

[Catholic_Lady]

I have already addressed this in full several pages back. I also briefly addressed this on the sentence that came right after the one you quoted. :-)

I'm unconvinced; I should think where your words and those of Jesus convey different messages, his words are regnant regarding the alleged propriety or impropriety of an act.

I will explain it again then. :-)

First you have to look at the biblical/Christian definition of the word "lust". The American Webster Dictionary of the word refers simply to a strong arousal. Arousal, in and of itself, is not immoral. But in Christianity, when we refer to "the sin of lust," we are not referring to the isolated act of being aroused. We are talking about taking it a step further by deliberately continuing to feed that arousal by objectifying someone else for personal gratification.

So, if you are married and you see another woman and become involuntarily aroused but go on about your day, you have not done anything immoral. But if upon feeling that arousal you choose to continue to stare and then proceed to fantasize about having sex with this woman or whatever, this is immoral. (all this per Church teaching of course)

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Also, Parker's Tan, it seems you assume that every time I write something such as I did above, that it is my own personal interpretation that I'm just making up. Lol, trust me I'm not smart enough to make up stuff like this. This is stuff I read in books written by Catholic apologists and theologians. This one in particular I first read about in a Catholic book by Mary Beth Bonacci, but it is a widely accepted view in Catholic circles.

[Longhorn]

It does matter. You are throwing an unwarranted accusation at a whole group of people. My people. Telling someone something is not the same as brainwashing. I know you don't mean any harm, but I do feel like I need to stand up a little bit here with this comment.

telling someone something, on pain of eternal torment, and forcing them to follow is brainwashing. Yes, they are forcing children to follow.

They all have the same attitude as you. 'You don't have to be here, it's your choice'. bullshit. If you don't follow, you will be ostracized.

You know, I may be drawing this to attention because I hate catholicism, but I have good reasons to.

I understand why you are. Lol, I went back and looked at what I was responding to and realized I totally misread what you wrote. I thought you said "immoral" instead of "moral." The answer is no. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.

well, that's a relief.

Why is telling kids about hell moral then?

I agree with this completely and could never have put it into words. Thank you Randy.

nope. Those are arguments. Facts don't need arguments for them. point is, you don't know. You believe.It's just making shit up.

[Longhorn]

Oh, of course it is. You "new atheists" believe that religion causes wars, the spread of AIDS (no condoms, remember) and all kinds of bad stuff.

Religion has to be eradicated, right?

don't put words in my mouth. it's not the belief in god alone, but the other doctrines that cause harm, like saying contraception is evil. You know that, but you'd much rather take this opportunity to construct yet another strawman.

[Catholic_Lady]

It does matter. You are throwing an unwarranted accusation at a whole group of people. My people. Telling someone something is not the same as brainwashing. I know you don't mean any harm, but I do feel like I need to stand up a little bit here with this comment.

telling someone something, on pain of eternal torment, and forcing them to follow is brainwashing. Yes, they are forcing children to follow.

They all have the same attitude as you. 'You don't have to be here, it's your choice'. bullshit. If you don't follow, you will be ostracized.

You know, I may be drawing this to attention because I hate catholicism, but I have good reasons to.

And that's the thing. I'm as Catholic as they come, and I hear you telling me that Catholics force people to save sex for marriage, and I have 0 idea what you're talking about. Not saying this has never happened (it is possible that it has, though I've never heard of or seen it), but you're passing it off as a prevailing norm.

[Longhorn]

I've seen it as a prevailing norm. Not saying it is everywhere, but it's enough that it is in some places. It's the same church.

[Catholic_Lady]

I understand why you are. Lol, I went back and looked at what I was responding to and realized I totally misread what you wrote. I thought you said "immoral" instead of "moral." The answer is no. Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.

well, that's a relief.

Why is telling kids about hell moral then?

I think telling kids about the Catholic teaching of Hell hardly qualifies as "torture".

I know I keep saying this, but I think it is important to do so: I feel for you for whatever horrible experiences you have had. I really do, and I feel awful about it.

To me though, everything you're saying about my Church is completely foreign. I never felt tortured or heard of anyone feeling tortured from this. Though I was taught about Hell, I was never taught in a way that I would ever think to describe as "torturing with the fear of Hell." Hell was never, ever any sort of main focus on anything I have ever experienced during my lifetime in the Church. I am not denying your experiences, but feel like you are making unfair generalizations and blanket statements about an entire group of people.

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I've seen it as a prevailing norm. Not saying it is everywhere, but it's enough that it is in some places. It's the same church.

How have you seen them go about "forcing" peole to save sex for marriage?

[Huggy Bear]

The purpose of quoting you was to add context to my post which was 3 pages later. I'm accused of derailing threads enough as it is....

Except that because I had nothing to say about that conversation regarding Milk at all (because I wasn't a regular poster here at that time), your "context" was not only artificial, but falsely constructed.  

You're a dishonest little jackoff.

Yet you continue to believe my comment was about you personally, while the language I used made it clear I was speaking generally. The Catholic Lady was able to figure that out, why is it so hard for you?


It would seem someone needs some reading comprehension

[Longhorn]

I think telling kids about the Catholic teaching of Hell hardly qualifies as "torture".

we were taking about threatening with torture. You can't talk about hell without threatening with torture, its virtually impossible . 'a place you go to if you reject god' is already a threat. It's a place for sinners to stuffer forever. There's no way to go about it without invoking fear.

I know I keep saying this, but I think it is important to do so: I feel for you for whatever horrible experiences you have had. I really do, and I feel awful about it.

I know you mean well. But you don't know what you're sorry for.

To me though, everything you're saying about my Church is completely foreign. I never felt tortured or heard of anyone feeling tortured from this. Though I was taught about Hell, I was never taught in a way that I would ever think to describe as "torturing with the fear of Hell." Hell was never, ever any sort of main focus on anything I have ever experienced during my lifetime in the Church. I am not denying your experiences, but feel like you are making unfair generalizations and blanket statements about an entire group of people.

I said it may not be like that everywhere, but it's the same church and the same doctrine. I'm not generalizing about a group of people,we're taking about an institution.that's different.

it's good you didn't have that experience. Unfortunately, many did.

How have you seen them go about "forcing" peole to save sex for marriage?

telling them they'll burn in hell forever if they don't, and ostracizing those who didn't listen.

[Catholic_Lady]

I think telling kids about the Catholic teaching of Hell hardly qualifies as "torture".

we were taking about threatening with torture. You can't talk about hell without threatening with torture, its virtually impossible . 'a place you go to if you reject god' is already a threat. It's a place for sinners to stuffer forever. There's no way to go about it without invoking fear.

Fair enough, I see what you mean now. I understand what you're saying but am having a hard time seeing it that way. I was taught about Hell but never once felt like I was being threatened. We were taught morality and the reasons behind why certain things were moral/immoral. It was never about "do this or you're going to be tortured forever in Hell!" But I don't doubt that some people may have taught it that way, and that's not right. The way I see, if someone has a dark heart and is going to commit bad deeds without any remorse (remorselessness is needed for Hell), they will do it anyway. Hell won't stop them. At least not for long.

I know I keep saying this, but I think it is important to do so: I feel for you for whatever horrible experiences you have had. I really do, and I feel awful about it.

I know you mean well. But you don't know what you're sorry for.

Just feel sorry for you for having such a bad experience. You seem like you're really traumatized. Sounds like some pretty terrible stuff happened to you, and I don't want to dismiss that.

To me though, everything you're saying about my Church is completely foreign. I never felt tortured or heard of anyone feeling tortured from this. Though I was taught about Hell, I was never taught in a way that I would ever think to describe as "torturing with the fear of Hell." Hell was never, ever any sort of main focus on anything I have ever experienced during my lifetime in the Church. I am not denying your experiences, but feel like you are making unfair generalizations and blanket statements about an entire group of people.

I said it may not be like that everywhere, but it's the same church and the same doctrine. I'm not generalizing about a group of people,we're taking about an institution.that's different.

it's good you didn't have that experience. Unfortunately, many did.

You did say that on your last post. Fair enough.

Though I will mention that the institution is made up of people. It isn't "the institution" that talks to you, get's stuff done, etc. It's the people.

How have you seen them go about "forcing" people to save sex for marriage?

telling them they'll burn in hell forever if they don't, and ostracizing those who didn't listen.

While this is heinous on the part of the people involved, I don't know if I'd go as far as to make the general statement "the Catholic Church forces people to..."