What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Randy Carson]

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.

Another atheist posed this question here.

[LastPoet]

WLC... Fuck me, what a dumb bunch of faithless idiots apologists are...

[Longhorn]

You'll need to demonstrate this before you swing it around in a conversation.

Here is some background.

From the link

---

Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.

But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.

---

This is exactly the sort of shit I'm talking about....making it up as you go

The problem with that, Randy, is the same as the problem with your arguments for the existence of god. They aren't why you believe in god, and similarly, this isn't why catholics believe contraception is wrong. This is only the excuse they give for the belief they already held before coming up with it.

Why do they really say contraception is wrong? Because that way they can control people's sexuality. That and a touch of 'everything different from how I do it is evil'.

[Randy Carson]

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.

We also send our children to school where they are forced to accept, believe and do all sorts of things. They are threatened with going to the principal's office, losing their recess, staying after school, and other forms of immediate public humiliation such as having to stand in the corner, write "I will not talk in class." on the blackboard 100 times, etc. In my day, we were even paddled by the teacher and the principal.

We do this every day all over the world, and no one gives it a second thought.

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.

When I reached the age of 16, my parents gave me a choice. I decided to sleep in. When my kids reached the age of 16, I gave them a choice. They chose to sleep in.

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

What are those reasons?

Why is telling kids about hell moral then?

What is moral about NOT telling someone the truth about a real danger?

[paulpablo]

Did we have a thread on Harvey Milk?

Yes.
There was a thread attempting to make fun of a religious group for opposing Harvey Milk's image (who was gay) being put on a stamp, come to find out, he was having sex with an underage boy.... Whoops! When this was pointed out, quite a few atheists began making excuses for the behavior, none would admit what he did was wrong.

Yet they all jump on the bandwagon when it come to criticizing Catholic priests.

I'm not Catholic ( I don't belong to any organization) nor do I agree with Catholic doctrine, I just point out hypocrisy when I see it.

1) I'd never heard of Harvey Milk.

2) Now I've researched about him I've found out the person he had sex with was 16 which is underage in some places but not where I live and I personally don't see anything wrong with it as long as the person was willingly having sex.

3) The person was willingly having sex with him.

4) I do find sex between a man and another man disgusting no matter what the age difference is but me finding something disgusting doesn't make it wrong.

5) Most of the catholic priest stories I've heard about involving sexual contact with underage people involved people who were much younger than 16 and not having sex willingly.

[Longhorn]

We also send our children to school where they are forced to accept, believe and do all sorts of things.

No, Randy. They don't have to believe. Only to learn. Which is necessary.

They are threatened with going to the principal's office, losing their recess, staying after school, and other forms of immediate public humiliation such as having to stand in the corner, write "I will not talk in class." on the blackboard 100 times, etc. In my day, we were even paddled by the teacher and the principal.

We do this every day all over the world, and no one gives it a second thought.

I don't know what kind of school you went to, but I've only seen the above things in American tv shows.

If that does happen, it's not comparable to threatening with eternal torture. Eternity in pain, Randy. Doesn't compare to a visit to the principal's office.

When I reached the age of 16, my parents gave me a choice. I decided to sleep in. When my kids reached the age of 16, I gave them a choice. They chose to sleep in.

And that is representative of all catholics and the catholic church how? I'm talking about the organization. Not individual cases.

What are those reasons?

I'm not fucking talking about it with someone like you.

What is moral about NOT telling someone the truth about a real danger?

You don't know it's a real danger but threaten them anyways.

What is moral about threatening children with being tormented for eternity to get them to obey?

[Randy Carson]

Yes, it is "the institution" that talks....the catholic church does not allow you to make up your own doctrine Cath.  When the church says sinners go to hell...it's the institution saying it, you're just a mouthpiece, when you relate it's message to us...and by now it's painfully clear that you haven't thought a single -bit- of it through.  You believe in contradictory things, while espousing positions contrary to doctrine.

I think you did what most people do, when holymen start talking.....explaining the faith....you fell asleep, or payed no attention whatsoever.  There's no real shame in this...I did it too, but then again...I'm not a believer, nor have I ever been.. it may have been a -little- more important for -you- to have kept your eyes open and your ears perked up....

Baloney.

We're thinking adults just like you. And while neither CL nor I may be 100% perfect in our understanding of Catholic doctrine, I think we may actually be a little bit better informed than the average Catholic with whom you may have chatted in the past.

I am a CONVERT to the Catholic faith. I didn't fail to pay attention. I did not fall asleep during CCD. I read. I thought. I prayed. I listened.

It is precisely because I WAS paying attention...in fact, because I STARTED paying attention...that I left Protestantism and embraced the Catholic Church.

Now, for an atheist, that change might sound about as insignificant as whether to pick up a new pair of socks at Walmart or Target. It's actually a really, really big deal.

But my point is this: You are FLAT. DEAD. WRONG. when you say that we have not thought about our faith, and your attempt to dismiss either of us on the basis that we're ignorant because we fell asleep in class (how would we know the "holy men" said if we had fallen asleep?) because THAT'S WHAT YOU DID isn't going to get you very far.

Let me get this straight: you openly admit that you weren't paying attention in class thereby calling your own knowledge and understanding of Christian doctrine into question. Then, you project that experience onto us as some sort of universal experience. Finally, you assume that as a result of your own inadequate faith formation and flawed grasp of theology, ours must be equally deficient; consequently, you can safely ignore anything we say.

Really?

One more point: let's say for the sake of argument that we are simply repeating what the Church has said without much thought. Does it follow automatically that what we are saying is therefore wrong? If the saints and doctors of the Church who have been wrestling with the really big questions of theology for 2,000 years HAVE come up with a few ideas, would it be wrong for Catholics to learn from them?

How is this somehow different (read "worse") than the pimply-faced teenagers in this forum who, in the full-blown throes of hormone-induced rejection of anything and everything that speaks of authority, have giddily embraced atheism and the ideas of Hitchen, Dawkins and others without actually "thinking about them"?

[Randy Carson]

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?

What, you mean like Ratzinger stating that condom use aggravates the AIDS crisis in Africa? That "the most effective presence on the front in the battle against HIV/Aids is the Catholic church and her institutions"? Or Archbishop Francisco Chimoio of Mozambique stating in 2007 that European condom manufacturers are deliberately infecting their products with HIV? Nothing harmful about any of that, right?

If someone has AIDS, which is more effective at preventing the spread of the disease: using a condom or abstinence?

If it is the latter, then yes, relying on condoms...with a known failure rate...does provide a false sense of confidence which does aggravate the AIDS crisis.

Let's make this personal, okay? Just to test your resolve.

You meet a nice girl and you go out a few times. Things are progressing nicely on many levels, and intimacy is a possibility. Then she tells you she has AIDS. "But it's okay," she says. "If you use a condom, you probably won't become infected."

Kind of a show-stopper, isn't it?

[Randy Carson]

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

Only if they believe it.

Seriously though, I grew up in a Catholic household and don't remember any specific emphasis placed on the idea of hell. In fact, I'm struggling to remember a specific instance of it ever being discussed. It certainly wasn't used as a psychological tool to influence behavior or belief. As far as premarital sex, I got a heavy dose of 'don't dare get anyone pregnant' and one believable threat that if I did my junk would be doused in kerosene and set ablaze, but no religious based prohibition was ever touted.

There was certainly discussion about Christ's promised return, but my Catholic experience never approached anything resembling the end times/armageddon that is now synonymous with Christianity in the USA. I think Mainline Protestants are similar. This lunacy is reserved for the Evangelical crowd, which is unfortunate since they are a sizable and very loud faction here.

Thank you, Cato. I know we disagree about many things, but your testimony exemplifies what most Catholics experienced.

To NEIMENOVIC and others:

I'm sure there are exceptions, but preaching "fire and brimstone" is not part and parcel of the typical Catholic experience.

[Randy Carson]

This isn't why catholics believe contraception is wrong. This is only the excuse they give for the belief they already held before coming up with it.

What is the belief that they held previously, and why would they have believed it?

Why do they really say contraception is wrong? Because that way they can control people's sexuality. That and a touch of 'everything different from how I do it is evil'.

How, precisely, does the Catholic Church control my sexuality?