What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Metis]

Fucking hell Rythmn. I died. I'm sending that to everyone. Where was this when I was studying?! D:




But yeah, at least the Catholics are consistent on this point. Any sexual contact is bad full stop <.<

[Catholic_Lady]

Just to clarify, the Church actually does not teach that anal foreplay is wrong. When a Catholic says they believe it to be wrong, they are speaking on their own opinions and not on any official Church teaching.

The book, Moral Theology, which was used by priests in the confessional distinguishes between what is called 'perfect sodomy' and 'imperfect sodomy". This is what is says about Imperfect sodomy:

"it is neither sodomy nor a sin if intercourse is begun in the rectal manner with the intention of completing it in the natural manner" (Jone "Moral Theology" 757)

Ah, you highlight an interesting point there Catholic_Lady, that itself is another interesting change in Church Teaching. Previously the Church forbade sodomy full stop, but after John Paul II released the Theology of the Body it became fine for heterosexual couples. Of course with the provision that the man must ejaculate within the vagina so there's still a chance of babies in theory, that's still a must. If he cums before then it's a sin.

I'm not making that up http://www.worldcat.org/title/iota-unum-...c/35022655 . There's probably other places you can read this too, most Traditionalist Catholic sites like those of the SSPX have several pages worth of "evidence" condemning John Paul II for doing this.

I think the reason given for why anal sex without climax became ok was a "change in perception across history about what constituted a contraceptive act". Really I just think it was giving a bit of ground to the sexual revolution.

-and you?  Do you enjoy a little rimming before being railed?  I'm remembering, now, what I found so delicious about catholic girls -then-.  We have a subforum you might want to join......shame is intoxicating, my love.

This is incorrect. The book I quoted was written in 1929 before JPII was pope, by a man named Heribert Jone. Theology of the Body is a different book. True sodomy is defined by climaxing outside of the vagina, regardless of where exactly. That is still considered a sin.

I can't speak for the SSPX since I am not associated with them and know nothing about them.

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Yeah I can't really relate to it at all It was bad enough my boyfreind not having any idea what the hell to do in the sack since the sex education Catholics get is so limited (I swear he didn't even know what a condom looked like, he thought I had sweets in the bedside cabinet ) but....I don't know. I'm not sure I even WANT to know.

Neither do catholic girls.....at first.......they quickly become pros - and they can -always- explain why -whatever it is they're doing- is "a-ok" with the church.  As we saw with our favorite catholic, above.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttw5a6xRj6c

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High five!

And just for the record, since the choice has been made to speak about me in this manner, anal foreplay is not something I have ever or will ever be interested in doing.

[The Grand Nudger]

That you find it within your catholic self to see offense here where you did not with your limp-dicked acceptence of childfucking and killing might be reason for another person to pause...but I know that this escapes your catholic self, by now,............so, meh?

[Cyberman]

I'm siding with rexbecca here. If these infallible announcements are so rare - I think you said a dozen of them in two millennia? - what is the point of Il Papa the rest of the time? There's been many, many popes over the centuries; at the rate you suggest, they cannot all have been necessary to make such announcements. What were the others needed for?

Yes, less than a dozen.

Well, they are still the representatives of the faith. A religion with over 1 billion people can benefit from having one person to represent and guide the people. Even though infalliable pronouncements are rare, you never know when one will need to happen, and if/when this is the case, a pope will be there.

Well ok, but that's not quite what you were saying earlier. You gave the impression that the pope's function was to make these inspired announcements, as if that was the sole attribute on his job description. Just seemes to me that the function would be better served, if it needs serving at all, by having a cadre of cardinals or whatever gathering to discuss and then make the pronouncement, then disbanding afterwards.

If the pope's primary function, however, is a sort of de facto super-cardinal, then fine. I could argue that such a role may have played an important function back in the days when the ordinary unwashed either couldn't, or were forbidden to, read their special book for themselves and thus had to be told what to think etc. Since the days of mass education and mass media, that function, like the vermiform appendix, is basically redundant and often more of a hindrance. On the other hand, it could be politically expediant to have a familiar face at the tiller, a useful distraction for such public anger as the RCC might engender with their shenanigans.

For extra credit: what does it say about the 'holy spirit' that it requires a single mouthpiece to relay its "inspirations"?

You mean why does it need to happen through a person verses just havng the voice sound from the sky for all to hear?

Not really. I'm thinking more along the lines of what are we to make of a person who, rightly or wrongly, is held to be or even claims to be infallible, claiming to speak for an entity that speaks only to him. For example, take the recent(ish) case of the two Wisconsin schoolgirls who stabbed a classmate because they said that the fictional Slender Man told them to. I'm going to prophesy that you and I are in agreement that they are somewhat less than sane. But what if they'd said the holy spirit had told them to act in a certain way (not necessarily murder)? What would you think of their mental state then?

Incidentally, its "versus", not "verses". You're very welcome.

I don't know. God thought it would be best this way, apparently. A theory that is widely accepted is that if God were to reveal Himself in such a concrete way again, He would be hated and resented by many people. Being more ambiguous allows people to simply not believe He exists, and this is a better alternative than knowing He does exist and hating Him. Having legitimate hatred for God is the one sure way of ending up in the one place where God is not present. Simply not believing that He is real leaves plenty of room for hope, IMHO. In my opinion, it's a way of protecting some of us from ourselves.

"I don't know" is a good answer for when you don't know something. Everything else that follows it, if you'll pardon me, is your brain flip-flopping desperately, trying to reconcile what you recognise is absurd with what you want to protect. IMHO, of course.

[Crossless2.0]

So . . . that's a 'no' on the rim job?

[Catholic_Lady]

So . . . that's a 'no' on the rim job?

No, it is not a no.

[tonechaser77]

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?

So...184 pages later and I certainly haven't read through all of them to see if this view has been stated. If it has, my apologies...
 
From a naturalistic perspective this has been addressed through the combined approaches of modern neuroscience, genetics, psychology, anthropology and other disciplines explanations have been posited for the biological origins of moral behavior. From this seat, morality is neither objective nor transcendent. It is the culture dependent expression of a set of neural systems that have evolved to allow our navigation of complex human social systems. 
 
A thesis growing in popularity that I subscribe to is that moral behavior arose in humans as an extension of the biological systems involved in recognition and care of mates and offspring. The systems are ancient, encoded in our genome and hard-wired into our brains and coupled with the ability of humans to predict future consequences of our actions, it allows us make choices to maximize not just short term but long term gain. Moral decision-making is informed by the biology of social attachments but is governed by principles of decision-making more generally. So we not only look for the right choice but for the optimal choice, based on satisfying a wide range of constraints and assigning priorities to them. This doesn't mean morals are innate but implies the capacity for moral reasoning and predisposition to moral behavior are innate. Just like a language needs to be learned, so do the codes of moral behavior and also like language moral codes are culture specific. 
 
I think the next question anyone would ask is if morals aren't objective why does it feel like they are?
 
The answer is because they evolve from neural systems grounded in emotion, in particular in attaching emotional value to different stimuli, including imagined consequences of actions. We evolved from other animals without reason (or with varying degrees of problem-solving faculties). For these animals to survive, neural systems are adapted to encode urges and beliefs in such a way as to optimally control behaviour. Attaching varying levels of emotional valence to different types of stimuli offers a means to prioritise certain factors in making complex decisions (i.e., those factors most likely to affect the survival of the organism or the dissemination of its genes). or humans, these important factors include our current and future place in the social network and the success of our social group. In the circumstances under which modern humans evolved, and still to a large extent today, our very survival and certainly our prosperity depend crucially on how we interact and on the social structures that have evolved from these interactions. We can’t rely on tooth and claw for survival – we rely on each other. Thus, the reason moral choices are tagged with strong emotional valence is because they evolved from systems designed for optimal control of behaviour. Or, despite this being a somewhat circular argument, the reason they feel right or wrong is because it is adaptive to have them feel right or wrong.

[The Grand Nudger]

Tone, you poor thing, you'll swiftly be told that all of that is bullshit, and that rules only exist because "gods" wrote them, either onto the cosmos or onto our "hearts"........

[Catholic_Lady]

Yes, less than a dozen.

Well, they are still the representatives of the faith. A religion with over 1 billion people can benefit from having one person to represent and guide the people. Even though infalliable pronouncements are rare, you never know when one will need to happen, and if/when this is the case, a pope will be there.

Well ok, but that's not quite what you were saying earlier. You gave the impression that the pope's function was to make these inspired announcements, as if that was the sole attribute on his job description. Just seemes to me that the function would be better served, if it needs serving at all, by having a cadre of cardinals or whatever gathering to discuss and then make the pronouncement, then disbanding afterwards.

If the pope's primary function, however, is a sort of de facto super-cardinal, then fine. I could argue that such a role may have played an important function back in the days when the ordinary unwashed either couldn't, or were forbidden to, read their special book for themselves and thus had to be told what to think etc. Since the days of mass education and mass media, that function, like the vermiform appendix, is basically redundant and often more of a hindrance. On the other hand, it could be politically expediant to have a familiar face at the tiller, a useful distraction for such public anger as the RCC might engender with their shenanigans.

I mean, that's definitely the pope's most important function. But apart from that, he's there for the same reason that every group has a particular leader or representative. Sorry I did not clarify this, I just figured it was assumed.

You make a valid point about a group of cardinals being on top instead of one pope. But I think the Church only has one leader for the same reason nations have one president, or for the same reason most other institutions or organizations, etc, have one main person. Disagreement can arise when there are too many chefs in the kitchen.

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You mean why does it need to happen through a person verses just havng the voice sound from the sky for all to hear?

Not really. I'm thinking more along the lines of what are we to make of a person who, rightly or wrongly, is held to be or even claims to be infallible, claiming to speak for an entity that speaks only to him. For example, take the recent(ish) case of the two Wisconsin schoolgirls who stabbed a classmate because they said that the fictional Slender Man told them to. I'm going to prophesy that you and I are in agreement that they are somewhat less than sane. But what if they'd said the holy spirit had told them to act in a certain way (not necessarily murder)? What would you think of their mental state then?

Incidentally, its "versus", not "verses". You're very welcome.

Thanks for the correction.

To someone who doesn't believe in the sanctity of the Church, I can definitely see how the belief that our leader can be "inspired" by the Holy Spirit is stupid. So I don't blame you. But I do belive in the santity of the Church and so this is what I believe as a Catholic. I don't know what else to tell you about that. We believe that the Holy Spirit does speak through a Pope's infallibility, but we don't believe that it speaks to little girls who kill their friend.

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I don't know. God thought it would be best this way, apparently. A theory that is widely accepted is that if God were to reveal Himself in such a concrete way again, He would be hated and resented by many people. Being more ambiguous allows people to simply not believe He exists, and this is a better alternative than knowing He does exist and hating Him. Having legitimate hatred for God is the one sure way of ending up in the one place where God is not present. Simply not believing that He is real leaves plenty of room for hope, IMHO. In my opinion, it's a way of protecting some of us from ourselves.

"I don't know" is a good answer for when you don't know something. Everything else that follows it, if you'll pardon me, is your brain flip-flopping desperately, trying to reconcile what you recognise is absurd with what you want to protect. IMHO, of course.

(my bold)

...Which is precisely why I presented it as a theory. :-)

I'm not smart enough to come up with this stuff on my own. This is a well accepted theory amongst many theologians. There is nothing wrong with having theories, so long as we don't present them as facts.

I respect your opinion.

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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?

So...184 pages later and I certainly haven't read through all of them to see if this view has been stated. If it has, my apologies...
 
From a naturalistic perspective this has been addressed through the combined approaches of modern neuroscience, genetics, psychology, anthropology and other disciplines explanations have been posited for the biological origins of moral behavior. From this seat, morality is neither objective nor transcendent. It is the culture dependent expression of a set of neural systems that have evolved to allow our navigation of complex human social systems. 
 
A thesis growing in popularity that I subscribe to is that moral behavior arose in humans as an extension of the biological systems involved in recognition and care of mates and offspring. The systems are ancient, encoded in our genome and hard-wired into our brains and coupled with the ability of humans to predict future consequences of our actions, it allows us make choices to maximize not just short term but long term gain. Moral decision-making is informed by the biology of social attachments but is governed by principles of decision-making more generally. So we not only look for the right choice but for the optimal choice, based on satisfying a wide range of constraints and assigning priorities to them. This doesn't mean morals are innate but implies the capacity for moral reasoning and predisposition to moral behavior are innate. Just like a language needs to be learned, so do the codes of moral behavior and also like language moral codes are culture specific. 
 
I think the next question anyone would ask is if morals aren't objective why does it feel like they are?
 
The answer is because they evolve from neural systems grounded in emotion, in particular in attaching emotional value to different stimuli, including imagined consequences of actions. We evolved from other animals without reason (or with varying degrees of problem-solving faculties). For these animals to survive, neural systems are adapted to encode urges and beliefs in such a way as to optimally control behaviour. Attaching varying levels of emotional valence to different types of stimuli offers a means to prioritise certain factors in making complex decisions (i.e., those factors most likely to affect the survival of the organism or the dissemination of its genes). or humans, these important factors include our current and future place in the social network and the success of our social group. In the circumstances under which modern humans evolved, and still to a large extent today, our very survival and certainly our prosperity depend crucially on how we interact and on the social structures that have evolved from these interactions. We can’t rely on tooth and claw for survival – we rely on each other. Thus, the reason moral choices are tagged with strong emotional valence is because they evolved from systems designed for optimal control of behaviour. Or, despite this being a somewhat circular argument, the reason they feel right or wrong is because it is adaptive to have them feel right or wrong.

Wow, this is very interesting and well thought out!

I enjoyed reading this. Thank you very much for the response to my question.

[h4ym4n]

Or perhaps, by extension, how does god know what is good?

By godly fiat or because things are intrinsically good?

Hello JHC.

Are you asking me why I believe God knows what is good? I believe things are intrinsically good because God made them that way. I believe God, being master of the universe,  is the one who establishes goodness and morality. But the point of this thread was not for me to sit here and preach and tell you guys what I believe. My purpose for creating this thread was to hear *your* views and discuss them with you.

So, ya got anything?

"I believe things are intrinsically good because God made them that way. "

Did god not think of child and infant rape in the creation phase? Did god not know humans would find it possible to do both? And do it?

What was gods determination of child or infant rape? Good or Bad? Source please

Couldn't god have made just these two things as impossible to do as to humans not being able to breath under water?


I know raping anyone is wrong because I would not like that to happen to me, and I never believed in any gods.


Gods design check list...

                              yes     no
humans can fly            no
humans can breath under water       no
human capable of raping infants      yes
humans owning humans    yes