Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ignoring the fact you are just asserting things, if your god is responsible for creation, then it is responsible for all of creation, including the bad.
Do you believe it would have been preferable for God to have created us as automatons incapable of disobedience? What you're doing is blaming God for creating us with free will.
You're the guy who runs off the road into a ditch, and then blames the car manufacturer for allowing the car to turn right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
We have seen the morality supported by the Bible. There are good reasons we do not follow that morality.
I didn't say anything about the Bible. What are you referring to exactly? Are you confusing Hebrew ceremonial law with universal moral law? Surely someone as knowledgeable and learned as you wouldn't make such an elementary mistake...
Do you believe it would have been preferable for God to have created us as automatons incapable of disobedience? What you're doing is blaming God for creating us with free will.
You're the guy who runs off the road into a ditch, and then blames the car manufacturer for allowing the car to turn right.
He is saying you are trying to have it both ways. You claim God created everything. Then you claim that morality comes from God (an unprovable statement , it is easily seen that we didn't need God to give us an understanding of morality, it's evolutionary ).Then all good comes from God. But not bad. Suddenly God is not responsible anymore for the existence of bad, even though according to you God created everything.
According to Christians , Satan/Lucifer was created by God and given permission to tempt mankind.
Isaiah 45:7 - I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord , who do all these things.
Such devious and illegal sexual activities, like pedophilia or beastiality, always seem to crop up when homosexuality is mentioned.
I have no interest in same sex relationships myself, but they are certainly not comparable to all these other criminal activities.
I also have an adult child who is gay, and that is purely their choice to be so.
How is the designation "Criminal Activity" determinant of anything but legality in some particular jurisdiction at some particular time?
What about if "The Law" did not say that men in their 50s having preteen girls as partners was a crime? Hundreds of millions of people in many Countries (in 2021) not only do not criminalize that...they celebrate them getting married.
What if beastiality was "legal"...would it then be "moral" in your view?
"Criminal" has nothing to do with it.
Differing times, cultures, traditions, Theological parameters, personal views, etc, establish "moral codes"...and they are all arbitrary.
People think whatever they do about these issues.
I can't disagree with you here; but I'm not interested in "what people consider" to be universal morality at any given time and place. I'm much more interested in what universal morality actually is, regardless of popular opinion.
As a Catholic, I believe that there exists a universal morality - a morality that applies equally to all and is unchanging throughout time and circumstance. It's source is outside of us - it's source is God. It is up to us as humans to find this universal morality.
Many believe that there is no such thing as universal morality at all - that morality is entirely subject to time, place, and circumstance.
We can't both be right. It's important to figure this out.
Certainly most people don't like being told what to do, especially with regard to the more personal matters such as sex. It's much more comfortable to be your own boss and decide for yourself what's right. The expression "ignorance is bliss" can also be applied here.
Here's a question for you: Do you believe that people in general in contemporary western society are happier and feel more fulfilled in general than western people were 50, 100, 500 years ago?
I've said before, and I'll say again the truth of these matters is not a function of or measured by happiness. The truth is what it is whether it suits us or not. Makes us happy or not. How we understand the truth and what we do with our understanding is what may or may not make us happy. Obviously there are a great many factors that go into what makes a person happy.
Me personally, I consider myself a very happy person and quite fortunate beyond what I deserve.
Also me personally, I think this effort or judgement with respect to morality when it comes to what others do is a problem. We can and should judge what is right or wrong, of course, and for me this is largely a function of whether people treat others with respect and don't unduly impose their beliefs and ways on others. WHATEVER anyone is into, if they are not imposing or unduly harming others, then I say "live and let live" and leave the judgement to God if you believe in God. Better yet, just "stay in your lane" either way.
Important to figure this out. Yes. I like to think I have, and I also like to think this is pretty simple to figure out if not hung up with ancient mental baggage that still has too many suffering from wrong-thinking backward ways.
The Church takes a moral stance on particular *actions* such as gay sex. I would hope that the Church's stand on this issue is clear and easily available.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken
Perhaps not the most appropriate quote to offer here, because I don't view being gay to be a problem, but the quote does well apply to your way of thinking about this issue. Simply put, wrong.
Morals exist in the context of society. They may or may not be universal, and they may or may not change over time. Some things, such as prohibition of murder, appear to be universal. Others, like racial slavery, have changed as society has changed. It's important to view these things in proper context. We can't look at things from centuries ago using 21st Century moral views. We would misunderstand things every time.
How, may I ask, can morals be universal? Even murder is considered acceptable under some circumstances according to some. Morals are an entirely subjective matter and what is "universal" no less subjective when it comes to morals.
As for the bolded; if I didn't think it was correct then I wouldn't hold to it.
I'm no relativist, and I'm not going to pretend to be one on this board.
There are far too many people who think they are correct, right, to think what they do. Of course...
Question is, are they correct, right, from an objective standpoint?
You may not see the similarity with someone who is racist and thinks they are correct, right to be racist, but confidence in opinion is not the measure of whether someone is right or wrong. Quite the contrary in far too many cases. What to do about people quite confident about their wrong thinking?
Clearly there are no easy answers or ways to correct someone's wrong-thinking. I've always just put my faith in the next generation, which in this respect seems to be going in the right direction. With those who are better educated in any case.
Of course - but there is a morality that transcends time and place. Everything I say is rooted in that premise.
Can you provide proof of this? All morality is relative to the society in which it forms. As societies grow larger and come in contact with differing societies some things change. But even then it is still a result of differing societies trying to establish common ground. Killing humans means different things to different societies. Nudity means different things to different societies. Morality on sexual relations differs by societies. There is no evidence for an overarching universal morality .
I'm not talking about Catholic teaching; I am talking about right and wrong. Sex is not wrong or bad if the parties aren't a married couple, or if they aren't open to life. Sex is just sex.
Here again we're going about trying to compare "apples with oranges" which is rather ridiculous when one person insists on wanting only an apple pie while others want orange juice instead and/or something else altogether...
If someone wants to adopt beliefs like these expressed by a fundamentalist Catholic, there is no reason, logic or rationale born from any other perspective that will make sense to them, and/or vice versa. All I know about confirmation bias and how people develop their views about such things pretty well makes clear that any effort to change anyone's mind in these regards is absolutely futile for all practical purposes. The very rare exceptions are exactly that.
So again what to do when someone espouses thoughts, opinions and beliefs that are "universally moral" far as they concerned but foreign if not abhorrent to others?
Best hope is to trust in the laws of a secular society to keep such thinking and teaching from unduly influencing or affecting those who are not about to adopt the same sort of opinions and beliefs as if they should be applied to everyone (who is NOT a fundamentalist Catholic in this case).
Let us be thankful of this somewhat tenuous protective net that allows the rest of us to live free of these sorts of radical notions some insist they know about what God wants.
I am reminded of my first comment in this thread, #70, and wondering how I ended up wasting so much time with this afterward. Now that I'm better appreciating what I've known about this effort all along, it's easier if not compelling for me to turn my attention elsewhere. The only thing positive I've enjoyed from this thread is to see a good many people if not most who see this sort of wrong-thinking the same way I do.
Here's hoping more and more people can divorce themselves from so much of this sort of thing that comes from ill-conceived beliefs, so that perhaps we can make progress and provide a bit more justice for those who have been harmed by this sort of thing since all the way back to the Dark Ages and before. Unfortunately still to this day as well.
Here's hoping for time better spent in another thread as well. Can only go up from here...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
