The other day we discussed Edward Feser and his take on the “natural law” in Catholicism—in this case, the “law” that sex between married couples is for procreation only, not to be impeded by chemicals or devices (although judicious employment of a calender is okay). I wondered at that time what Catholics meant by “natural law,” and if that law was well understood and explicitlly laid out in Catholic dogma.
It turns out that this isn’t the case.
In her latest post, “The dangers of theology,” Miranda Hale tries to decipher the mysteries of natural law and comes up pretty dry. The best she can do is this:
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “[t]hose actions which conform with [nature’s] tendencies, lead to our destined end, and are thereby constituted right and morally good; those at variance with our nature are wrong and immoral” and “[a]ctions are wrong if, though subserving the satisfaction of some particular need or tendency, they are at the same time incompatible with that rational harmonious subordination of the lower to the higher which reason should maintain among our conflicting tendencies and desires”.
Compatibility with “rational harmonious subordination of the lower to the higher which reason should maintain” is hardly something that’s immediately obvious.
I found a bit more in the Catholic Encyclopedia, but it’s not very helpful:
The question arises: How far can man be ignorant of the natural law, which, as St. Paul says, is written in the human heart (Romans 2:14)? The general teaching of theologians is that the supreme and primary principles are necessarily known to every one having the actual use of reason. These principles are really reducible to the primary principle which is expressed by St. Thomas in the form: “Do good and avoid evil”. Wherever we find man we find him with a moral code, which is founded on the first principle that good is to be done and evil avoided. When we pass from the universal to more particular conclusions, the case is different. Some follow immediately from the primary, and are so self-evident that they are reached without any complex course of reasoning. Such are, for example: “Do not commit adultery”; “Honour your parents”. No person whose reason and moral nature is ever so little developed can remain in ignorance of such precepts except through his own fault. Another class of conclusions comprises those which are reached only by a more or less complex course of reasoning. These may remain unknown to, or be misinterpreted even by persons whose intellectual development is considerable. To reach these more remote precepts, many facts and minor conclusions must be correctly appreciated, and, in estimating their value, a person may easily err, and consequently, without moral fault, come to a false conclusion.
The ambiguity is “those [conclusions] which are reached only by a more or less complex course of reasoning,” and which may be misinterpreted even by smart folks. That’s where the discretion of Church authorities comes in, giving them of course considerable wiggle room, though they haven’t wiggled out of their stands on abortion or condom use.
This is the same problem I came up with in trying to investigate what sins are considered “mortal sins” by Catholics. That idea, too, is ambiguous. And I think the ambiguity of both notions is deliberate, for by keeping the faithful off balance, and unsure whether they’re obeying natural law and committing mortal sins, the Church gains considerable power over its members.
Seems to me that the Catholic concept of “Natural Law” inevitably reduces to, “Because I said so, that’s why.”
Which sure would explain an awful log….
Cheers,
b&
Yeah, I hate that log…
Aug 15 22:26:46 reiche dhcpd[1875]: DHCPREQUEST for 24.249.191.243 from 00:00:85:9a:a4:53 via nfe0
Aug 15 22:26:46 reiche dhcpd[1875]: DHCPACK on 24.249.191.243 to 00:00:85:9a:a4:53 via nfe0
Aug 15 23:14:37 reiche lawd[666]: unnatural access violation; terminating
Aug 16 01:07:08 reiche ntpd[76]: adjusting clock frequency by 0.102956 to -35.996452ppm
Aug 16 01:30:02 reiche identd[3625]: Connection from localhost.trumpetpower.com
Oh. That awful log.
Loooggg, Looooggg,
It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood…
It’s better than bad, it’s good!
Is there anything more natural than Survival of the Fittest? Libertarians are gonna LOVE Catholicism! And as I have said before, bonobos have sex for reasons other than reproduction. Free love all the way, baby!
naw, they got that covered:
emphasis mine.
sure, it’s entirely tautological, even circular, but they can say that they are only talking about natural behavior for “humans”.
strangely, I don’t recall seeing the Vatican consulting anyone but the Vatican on what constitutes “natural” behavior, but then there lies the rub…
or is rubbing bad?
That really is what religion is all about: Pure power for the sake of power over other humans. Nothing more.
Controlling peoples’ behavior (especially basic natural behaviors such as if, when, and how they can have sex) is the best way to control minds and wallets, and to assure your absolute power over them. One needs only examine how well the clergy lives compared to the laity. Virtually never will you find a priest or pastor who lives a life of poverty while his flock prospers. Most often it is quite the opposite.
Of course, in regard to the Catholic church in particular, the primary goal of their little regime is pure power for the sake of making it easier to engage in the brutal rape and torture of countless children for centuries.
“That really is what religion is all about: Pure power for the sake of power over other humans. Nothing more. ”
yup.
with the same rationalizations included to ease the guilt of all those who indulge the will to power:
“We’re doing it for your own good!”
Which is why certain atheists should stop thinking that eradication of religion will solve all our problems. Something will always arise to rule by power.
Oops, wrong username.
lol. “nevermind”
To be sure, we’d still have lots of problems without religion…but, without religion, some of those problems would start to become manageable.
How do you tackle AIDS in Africa when the Pope is hellbent on genocide there?
How do you bring peace to the Middle East when the Jews think their religion grants them an eternal lease on the land, the Muslims think their religion grants them an eternal lease on the land, and the Christians think that the only way to get Jesus to come back is to egg the Jews and Muslims into total war?
How is the US supposed to be an innovator in the biosciences when over half the population has religious convictions that the foundations of the discipline are bullshit?
I’ll take Sedona-style Newage crystal-vortex woo over any mainstream religion any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Or is it Saturday? Friday…?
Cheers,
b&
One problem with natural law theory, even segregated from its theistic origins (as some conservatives like Harvey Mansfield at Harvard deploy it), is simply the the naturalistic fallacy: the illicit inference from a natural fact (certain sexual acts can result in procreation) to a moral injunction (individuals should ideally only engage in sexual acts which can result in procreation). As Hume pointed out long ago, there is no necessary link between what we find to be the case and what we ought to do. Even if we declare that some sexual practices serve a natural standard more than others, or tend toward our “true” or “perfect” nature as defined by our procreative capacities, there is still no way to establish the proposition that the natural standard should be *our* standard, so that procreation should be every individual’s goal.
http://www.naturalism.org/sexualit.htm#rhetoric
“Compatibility with ‘rational harmonious subordination of the lower to the higher which reason should maintain’ is hardly something that’s immediately obvious.”
But it sure makes a handy justification for authoritarianism.
Yes, that’s the way I read the “harmonious subordination of the lower to the higher” nonsense: slaves, submit to your masters; women, submit to your husbands; everybody, submit to your priests. And don’t just submit, but put on a happy face and do it “harmoniously.”
+1 to both of you.
I once read a compelling argument that prostitution actually is “the oldest profession” and that primitive women offered sex to men for food. The evidence offered was that women can have more frequent orgasms than men, implying their natural promiscuity.
If true, it appears to be a natural practice that our intelligence aided us in (generally) overcoming and condemning. Does the Catholic Church want the human race to revert to that natural custom?
“The evidence offered was that women can have more frequent orgasms than men, implying their natural promiscuity.”
this makes no sense.
If they were doing it for food, the food is the only reward system needed.
multiple orgasms wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
moreover, males too can have several orgasms in a day.
These are hardly universal moral concepts. I think it should be more like, “Do not commit adultery, if that’s what you and your partner agree to”, or “Honor your parents, at least while they earn it, and you’re dependent on them, and your dad isn’t Hitler…”
I was immediately struck by this too. “Honor your parents” is self evident to ALL humans? Really? In my particular case, my parents are great, and I’ve been very happy with that accident of birth. But there sure are a lot of people out there that need to get away from their parents as soon as possible.
And really, what does it mean to honor your parents? Make a little shrine around their pictures once dead? Send them birthday cards? Call them every Sunday evening? Give them 20% of your income? Do everything they command of you?
Self-evident? Uh, not really.
But then they hedge their bets–it must be MY fault that I don’t get this.
This is what you would expect from a bunch of emotionally retarded old men who view every human relationship through the lens of sex.
They just can’t imagine a consensual relationship where sex, power and ownership are not the only objectives. And one need only look at the non-consensual “relationships” that rcc clergy indulge in see how this works out in practice.
“Honor your parents” is just another way of saying the role of the laity is to pay, pray and obey.
of course.
that’s why priests are called “father”, and head nuns “Mother”
nun yesterday, nun today & nun tomorrow…
Let’s just be thankful that the Roman Catholic Church didn’t decide that you should have sex with your partner only when the woman was was fertile. I mean, that’s where ‘natural law’ takes you, doesn’t it?
Well, they couldn’t do that — otherwise having sex with underage kids would be “wrong”.
I always saw Catholic moral theology as taking all the old instances of “God says so” then replacing “God” with “natural law”.
The whole idea of deriving moral precepts from a teleological view of what our parts are for is absurd, and only serves to rationalize ancient patriarchal prejudices.
Well… you could use it to rationalize whatever the current sociobiological theories you prefer as a moral “natural law” as well. Those won’t be ancient, and won’t necessarily be patriarchal. (Not to say they can’t be, or that the sociobiological speculation isn’t based on those very prejudices instead of rigorously gathered and critically analyzed data.)
“Well… you could use it to rationalize whatever the current sociobiological theories you prefer as a moral “natural law” as well. ”
In fact, this is exactly what Francis Collins does with his “Moral Law” arguments in his book.
…and they are just as poorly conceived and vacuous as you would expect.
Thank you, now I won’t have to read it. 😉
My biggest problem with natural law theory is not with his general framework, which is actually quite compelling, but with how it is supposed to work in practice. Once one descends from the elevated generalities of metaphysical theory and into the muck and complications of human life, everything becomes very messy.
For example, one can agree that there are a number of purposes and ends to sexual activity, and that some of those purposes are more primary than others. However, by what criteria does one decide which are primary and which are secondary? It ultimately comes down to personal preference, which completely undermines the rational and objective foundations of natural law theory altogether, because it places at its core an inherent subjectivity.
What’s compelling about the general framework? How isn’t it just the naturalistic fallacy?
I am serious, by the way, I’m curious what you find compelling about it. It does sound to me like the naturalistic fallacy, but it seems to me you’ve been looking into the subject deeper than I ever have without quite committing to it. So I’m sincerely curious what it is you find compelling about natural law morality.
Why the need to decide that one sexual activity is more primary than another ?
Other than prurience that is.
I would think that a better metric would be that the sexual activity is consensual.
Why not frequency? By this metric, “spilling one’s seed” would conform to natural law as much as breathing.
Not that I spill my seed as often as I breathe — one has to eat, after all.
“Not that I spill my seed as often as I breathe — one has to eat, after all.”
that’s why god gave you two hands.
🙂
According to this the Catholic church should have no issues with same sex relations …. right? I mean, if it is in one’s nature to be sexually attracted to the same sex then it would be immoral for others to prevent you from acting naturally …. right?
It is easy to see why the church hierarchy is so jealous of its authority to interpret, well, everything. It is all so clearly about nothing but the maintenance of power. I can’t understand why so many people still remain Catholic. It is disgusting.
Also, celibacy is definitely at variance with our nature, so clearly celibacy is wrong and immoral.
I’ve been posting on Feser’s blog and trying to get past the haughty, supercilious replies to extract actual substance is quite a task. They tend to follow Feser’s lead, which is to always presume the greatest possible ignorance of the atheist on all philosophical matters, and to reply “Go study X books” rather than actually answer
basic questions.
As I keep pointing out to them, the number of pages one can say has been devoted to a subject, or the complexity of a theory is not in of itself a barrier to discussion.
If someone arrives with a basic question wondering how the Theory Of Evolution would approach the answer then I (like most here) can give some account, without having to adduce Darwin’s entire book or every bit of observation and justification that has accrued since his book.
Even if someone shows up asking “If we evolved from monkey, how come there are still monkeys?” I COULD say “Aagh, you are so ignorant, it took Darwin over 500 pages to build his case and much research on top of it since then, so just go read all those books. It’s too complex for me to address your question here.”
But I wouldn’t have to. I could also simply explain how that question is answered by evolution theory (modern monkeys and humans split off from a distant ancestor), and I can give other justifications for the explanatory power and use of evolution theory.
In fact, the same could be said of probably the most notoriously complex and abstruse theory there is – Quantum Mechanics. I wouldn’t have to even be able to write a single equation, as a lawman, to nonetheless provide some good justification for the value of the theory. I can point out how it is successfully used for important predictions, which supports the claim that one is actually gaining “knowledge” via quantum theory.
This is what Thomists seem unable…and often unwilling to do when confronted “face to face” as it were. The Feser crowd so often falls back to moaning about how “ignorant” the atheist is about Thomist theory, and when I ask “Ok, enlighten me somewhat. At least give me some argument or indication there is any value to your theory, here are some basic issues we can discuss…”
Then it’s either “Thomism’s answer to your questions are too complex for me to comply.”
Or, when you can actually drag SOME attempt to answer from the Thomists, for instance about Natural Law, then you get quite poor answers and the facade of haughty philosophical superiority grows thin.
Vaal.
Ugh, sorry for typos. I meant “as a layman” not “lawman.”
Vaal.
That makes a lot more sense, now. 😉
I thought I was in a western there for a second! I thought we were back in the cowboy days! I was looking for my horsie! I don’t have one!
No kidding, you should skim through the Summa Theologica just for giggles.
The part that always gets me is the section where Aquinas discusses in great detail why it was logical and right that man was made first by god out of dust, and woman was made second out of his rib. (Why: so that woman would be naturally subservient to man, of course! And no, I’m not making that up.)
Aquinas was a man of his time — superstitious and a biblical literalist. If you were to meet him on the street today and say “Adam and Eve were mythological”, he would be gobsmacked at the concept.
Let me also say that those people who declare to you that “it’s too difficult to explain” have probably not even attempted to read the Summa.
It’s an eminently accessible tome. Laid out in an extremely clear and logical fashion. And each section where Aquinas takes on this or that issue with regard to the “truth” of the bible is fairly brief.
The entire section on his “5 Ways” is very brief.
The next time someone says, “it’s too complex,” ask them to point you to the section of the Summa where you can read for yourself. My guess is you’ll be met with silence. ‘Cuz it ain’t that hard to look stuff up in the Summa, and the arguments presented are clear and concise.
Total bullshit, of course, but clear and concise.
Aquinas is one of those great thinkers, if only for only one reason: he is clear enough to be clearly wrong. Schopenhauer, for example, is also like this. Kant, by contrast, you’ve got to work at, and then there’s all the “not even wrongs”, like Heidegger …
I had same experience in an exchange with a Muslim. He had told another skeptic to consult “authorities.” I asked him to name a half dozen and provide links. I also asked him to straightforwardly answer what Islam officially says is what if any penalty for apostasy. His reply words to the effect, “What do you care? You do not live under Shariah.” As if it is not possible for sympathy and solidarity to extent beyond political borders.
“I could also simply explain how that question is answered by evolution theory (modern monkeys and humans split off from a distant ancestor)”
Or say, “For the same reasons that someone called Smith can have a grandson called Jones, yet there are still Smiths.”
dguller,
I’ve just posted again (to you under the name RH) in Feser’s Argumentum ad Mimmlerum comments section, about Final Causes, purpose etc.
I wonder what you find “compelling” about the general framework of Natural Law theory.
Everything I’ve seen indicates it is the framework and assumptions, as much as anything else, that are at fault and lead to the muddled thinking and assertions from Thomists.
Like I said, when you make “purpose” an objective feature, rather than (in strict terms) reserve it for the intent of an agent (subjective feature), then inherent problems arise – even more so when you also assume teleology and morality into the mix.
You can not just assume your “ought” or final cause for any entity, as that would beg the question. Therefore, one must infer the final cause – objective purpose – of any entity from
observation, in other words, from DESCRIPTIVE statements.
Hence one can observe a leg:
Facilitates walking.
Facilitates playing soccer.
Facilitates kicking someone’s face in. Etc.
How does the Thomist select any ONE (or several) descriptive statement as being the Final Cause which also imports the value “one’s legs OUGHT to do X?”
So far the Thomists have given nothing approaching a cogent answer. As others have pointed out, despite their protests to the contrary, they give no reason to think they are not stuck in a Naturalistic Fallacy, leading to their own arbitrary decrees of which descriptive sentence amounts to a Final Cause and what one OUGHT to do.
And this comes from the very rotten core, the bad assumptions, of the entire framework. It’s also why Thomists can move so easily to believing absurdities like one finds in their Catholic theology, and even the very way they grant Divine credence to The Bible.
Vaal.
“It is demonstrable,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles, therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.”
Where’s the quote from? Sounds pretty Swiftian.
It’s Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide.
Quite amazing, isn’t it, that we’re still stuck in the 18th century with these people?
Of course, since the church only got around to apologizing for Galileo in the 20th century, I suppose it’s to be expected. The wheels grind slow and exceedingly fine over in Theology Land.
The catlick church’s notion of “Natural Law” is not at all what was originally meant by the ancient Greeks or even modern society in general. For the church, “Natural Law” means “God’s rules of how Nature should behave” and those rules of course are all made up for the convenience of the church. That is why these “laws” include things like “you can’t wear a condom”.
That is why these “laws” include things like “you can’t wear a condom”.
Especially weird since latex grows on trees. If I was the religious type I would interpret that as God trying to tell us something.
well, technically latex grows IN trees…
I’ll let you figure out of there are any useful euphemisms with that in mind.
I would like to know if you know where the first bit of matter came from.
And if noone can answer that question to your satisfaction, the answer is automatically “the bearded god in the sky, the one who cares who you have sex with and how, made it from his ear-wax” or some such thing … right?
Or am I missing a crucial, subtle, nuanced theological argument that simply devastates Darwinical space-worship?
There was no where then. (Or then, either.)
What makes you think there was a first bit of matter? Only in a theological framework does the question even make any sense.
Your pithy drive-by question/comment has made me rethink everything I’ve come to value and to cherish. I will report to the nearest church, fall upon my knees, and beg the great ground of being to accept me back into the flock. Thank you, oh wise mimi, for your wisdom and charity.
Hello, Catholic natural law ethicist here. Just going to say two things (I tried to post earlier but the internet ate it).
“I think the ambiguity of both notions is deliberate, for by keeping the faithful off balance, and unsure…”
The ambiguities in natural law are because as abstract principles are applied to particular cases the circumstances surrounding the case can start to generate exceptions. For example, borrowed goods ought to be returned unless the owner is going to use the goods to kill someone.
There are also several school of natural law thought so if you don’t disambiguate them it looks pretty confusing.
The ambiguities in whether acts are mortal sins stem from the fact that of the three criteria for a mortal sin (which are not ambiguous) two are completely internal to the individual. A mortal sin must be 1) a grave matter committed with 2) full knowledge of the gravity and 3) full consent of the will. Full knowledge and full consent are completely internal. Makes it hard to determine if they are there.
Brian Green
The criteria seem very ambiguous to me. What, exactly, is a “grave matter?” Where may one find a complete list of grave matters? I’ve seen the description in the Catholic Catechism and it is not clear at all. Ditto for the terms “full knowledge” and “full consent.” What do those terms mean, exactly? What distinguishes full knowledge from partial knowledge and full consent from partial consent? How is full knowledge acquired? Given what the Church claims to be the consequences of unrepented mortal sin (eternal punishment in hell), you’d think it would want to explain these terms as clearly as possible.
Just going to the Catechism paragraphs 1857-1861 fills in the blanks: grave matters are ones which violate the Ten Commandments. Killing, stealing, sexual sin, lying, etc. These have modifying factors around them based on the circumstances, so that the banned form of killing, for example, becomes “the intentional direct killing of an innocent person.” So if you are looking for a list look at the Ten Commandments, which the Catechism structures itself around, paragraphs 2084-2557, or pages 560-672.
Going by lists or rules is one form of the tradition, the other is by virtues and vices, so there are actually two ethical methodologies in Catholicism. This is not for the sake of confusing the masses but rather because figuring out what good is and how to do it is difficult. The general principles are clear (“do good, avoid evil”), the particularities are not.
Knowledge and consent are dependent on the individual in question. Many of the tribes in the Old Testament thought it was necessary to sacrifice their firstborn children. They may or may not have realized this was wrong – knowledge of ethics is difficult when everyone is telling you what to do. So they might not have had full knowledge. Even if they did realize it was wrong, they would have experienced social coercion to comply, thus damaging their full consent to the act.
Anyway, the point of classifying a sin as mortal is so that people will 1) not do them and 2) get forgiven for them if they do. I fail to see how this keeps Catholics as fearful masses hanging on the hierarchy’s every word.
Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Well, there goes art, astronomy, microscopy, and the rest.
Exodus 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Jesus Tittyfucking Mary Motherloving Christ on a pink pogo stick! What the Hell good is a god’s name for if not to take it in vain?
Exodus 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
And, let’s not forget to torture to death all those who do!
Exodus 31:12 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.
14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Care to try again? Or is the Bible to be ignored in favor of Church policy?
Cheers,
b&
I’ll try again when you grow up. Care to try?
What was immature about his post? He made several valid points.
No, he didn’t. He made a few rhetorical points and then patted himself on the back. Tell me what you thought was a good point? Maybe I’ll answer that.
And before HE does, Mr. Green, you’ll have to answer the question that I often require of religious posters here. What, exactly, is the evidence that makes you so sure that there is not only a God, but that your particular Catholic faith is the true one as opposed to, say, Islam?
Sorry, Dr. Coyne, I couldn’t hit reply right under your post (no option to) so I’ll put it here. Also sorry for attracting your attention. I’ll try to be nicer. 🙂
I actually just answered this question over at another atheist blog called Unequally Yoked in the context of an “Atheist-Christian Turing test.” IOW two sides trying to convince the other you are one of them. Fascinating stuff, I recommend the series highly. Anyway, here is the web address. It’s about 1000 words.
http://www.unequally-yoked.com/2011/07/turing-christian-answer-10.html
I apologize for the linked post sounding pompous, I was trying to win the contest. 🙂 Or maybe the internet just makes me pompous (and for that I am sorry).
That’s only a partial answer. But my general response is that atheism (at least in the form of scientism, since we have to give some content to atheism) is both irrational and fails to explain more of reality than theism does.
A fuller answer will take more time. Do you have a more specific question mot addressed in the linked post?
If you like I could post the linked piece here, in pieces.
Why should we bother with somebody who can’t even correctly translate the single most important Greek word in all of Christian theology?
The “Logos,” or “Word,” was first incorporated into Judaism from Hellenism by Philo Judaeus of Alexandria about the same time your missing messiah was supposed to have been the human incarnation of said Word. Yet, somehow, Philo — who was the brother-in-law of Herod Agrippa and who reported extensively on the goings-on in and around Judea, goings-on he himself participated in — never once mentioned Jesus or any of the events of the New Testament or even anything that could vaguely remotely be squinted at so as to be mistraken for any of it.
While we’re on the subject, the Dead Sea Scrolls, an unprecedented library of actual, original first-century documents penned in Jerusalem before, during, and after all proposed dates for Jesus’s life, and again containing descriptions of current affairs and related matters, are also silent.
As is Pliny the Elder, who was fascinated with all things supernatural. And the Roman Satirists, whose stock in trade were the exact sorts of political humiliations Jesus heaped upon the establishment. And every other source who was alive at the time, and almost all who were born shortly after — and those few who actually did mention something were only describing the antics of a lunatic whack-job fringe cult that would have out-crazied the Raelians.
Hell, you’re a Catholic. You should know who Justin Martyr was. How do you explain his obsession with detailing all the ways that Jesus was indistinguishable from all those pagan gods I’m sure you dismiss as fictional? Do you agree with his conclusion that those other gods were the work of evil time-travelling demons? Or was the very first apologist incorrect in his assessment of Jesus’s true nature?
“Logic.” Bah! You wouldn’t recognize logic if it whacked you over the head with a bat carved with the word.
Cheers,
b&
* The laws found in the Bible – which Jesus said to uphold and that he came to fulfil – prohibit the making of images of anything found in nature. This would definitely pose a problem for science, not to mention art.
* The laws found in the Bible command the followers of God’s commandments to kill people who don’t follow them.
One takeaway from that is it’s hard to reconcile those laws with the idea that God’s law has anything to do with confirming with nature’s tendencies.
The other takeaway is that many of those laws are stupid or downright vile.
Mr. Goren, I apologize for having provoked you to such anger, though I think the only thing I did to incur it was to propose a metaphysics different than yours. Interesting.
Surely you know that words can have multiple meanings. Ancient Greek had fewer words than contemporary English, therefore the fewer words represent broader concepts, e.g. “logos” including, talking, reasoning, convincing, etc.
For the other point on graven images, the prohibition is on making images and worshiping them as gods. I don’t think that’s much of a problem any more.
“For the other point on graven images, the prohibition is on making images and worshiping them as gods. I don’t think that’s much of a problem any more.”
Was it ever a “problem”?
Oh, but that’s not what you did, and not what provokes my anger.
What you did was declare as the ultimate moral authority a document that demands death for those who clean up the yard on the worng day of the week and that equates women with chattel slaves and livestock. And this document is embedded in a book that declares that rapists should be “punished” by having to marry their victims, and in which your supreme moral authority commits and commands genocide. As you well know, I could go on.
And curious that you should ignore all those who failed to notice your imaginary zombie friend and instead pretend that what you do in front of all those statues in your church doesn’t qualify as “worship.”
Cheers,
b&
I’m going to restart the sub-comment thread down below.
Squeeze me?
You’re the one who thinks that an ancient anonymous anthology that opens with a story about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry giant and that features a talking plant (on fire!) that gives magic wand lessons to the reluctant hero is the ultimate source of wisdom.
You’re the one who thinks that a garden-variety pagan demigod spoke the universe into existence, just so he could go slumming in the backwaters of the Roman Empire and get his kicks by having the locals fondle his intestines through his gaping chest wound.
You’re the one who thinks a modern-day shaman can turn stale crackers and cheap wine into the flesh and blood of the aforementioned zombie, and that you’ll become an immortal zombie vampire just like him if you cannibalize said wine and crackers.
And you’re the one who just claimed that the brutal savagery of the Ten Commandments that I just quoted constitute something you describe as “natural law.”
And you think I’m the one who needs to grow up?
Cheeses fried in lard, lamb with cod. There goes another irony meter. Anybody found a good source of those things?
Cheers,
b&
Please pat yourself on the back again.
no need. the rest of us are already patting him on the back.
that was awesome, Ben.
As you would.
What Ichthyic said.
Thanks, guys. Nice to know I’m not completely nuts….
b&
I only say the above because I doubt the sincerity of your looking for an answer. If you knew anything about Christian history you would know that Jesus overthrew the Sabbath laws because “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” Just because Christians fail at their own teachings does not make the teachings false.
What, so Daddy says one thing, Mommy says another, so you’ll go with the one you like? Is that how “sophisticated” theology works?
I don’t remember the Jesus character ever being quoted as saying anything about graven images.
Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Uh-oh. Guess Jesus’s daddy is going to roast you over a spit for all those Crucifixes and Madonnas. Or have enough generations passed for the sunset clause to be in effect?
Cheers,
b&
Brian Green,
You haven’t answered my questions. What, exactly, is the difference between “full knowledge” and lesser degrees of knowledge in this context? Ditto for consent. How is a person supposed to know whether he has the “full knowledge” that, you claim, he must possess for his sin to qualify as mortal if the Church cannot explain clearly what that term means? How is this alleged knowledge acquired? If someone sincerely believes that, for example, an act of adultery is not unethical, does that he mean he doesn’t have the “full knowledge” you refer to, or is he just ignoring that knowledge for selfish ends? Your language here isn’t merely ambiguous, it is so vague that it provides no clear method for identifying mortal sins at all.
But the “abstract principles” quoted above (from the Catholic Encyclopedia) are so vague as to be almost completely useless. They give the claimant so much leeway that he can claim almost anything to be in accord (or not) with the “natural law”.
How does “natural law” lead to this conclusion, even roughly speaking?
That version of the Catholic Encyclopedia is 101 years old, so the language is dated, and it also presumes that the reader actually already knows something about Catholic tradition and theology. The terms look vague because you are not familiar with them so I will try to make them more clear. It’s also an encyclopedia so it does not try to give an exhaustive answer, just an overview.
The basic principle of natural law ethics is “do good, avoid evil.” Nobody disagrees with that because it is a purely formal statement: neither good nor evil have any content. Whatever you do you think is good and whatever you are avoiding you think is evil. The content of “good” and “evil” then comes from the basic human inclinations towards life, sex, living in society, and learning. (This is Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae I-II 94.2)
As for anything being in accord with natural law this is definitely not the case. Mass murder is not in accord with NL because life is good. Stealing is not either. However, keeping someone’s knife from them when you borrowed it to cut up your carrots and they want it back to go kill someone is an exception to what could otherwise be called stealing. By keeping the knife you are not stealing, you are keeping a weapon from a potential murderer. Property rights are subordinate to the right to life.
How’s that natural law? Because humans incline to like staying alive. We also incline towards staying alive via having property, but property is an indirect means towards life, whereas getting stabbed is not.
Lastly I would add that there are multiple schools of natural law thought ranging from physicalism to rationalism, rule-based to virtue-based, and so on. Ethics – perhaps contrary to what some people think – is actually not easy, even though everybody does it all the time. Ethics is the study of action and every action occurs in a particular context, never in the abstract, which is why you can have a case and keep adding circumstances to it, each time flipping the judgment from good to bad, and so on, almost ad infinitum.
Uh, none of the Ten Commandments address sexual sin.
You mean like adultery?
Forgot that one. But that’s the only one. None of the other sexual acts the Catholic Church considers sins are in there.
But they are in other places in the Bible. The attempt was then made to unite these rules into an over-arching system by finding their common principle or by analogizing them with each other.
But if they’re not in the ten commandments, then they’re not grave sins, by your own definition.
And they certainly have nothing to do with our natural tendencies. There’s nothing natural about marraige; it’s a man-made institution. There’s nothing natural about monogamy in humans. And we know that some people have a natural tendency to feel sexual attraction towards members of the same sex; suppressing those desires certainly isn’t in accord with natural tendencies.
I would define theology as an impenetrable ball of religio-philosophical razor wire designed to protect, at its heart, non-existent truths.
SIN is merely an acronym for
Self
Inflicted
Nonsense
Bart from the Atheist Camel pointed me at this website. It’s probably the most comprehensive site that I’ve found but it’s well worth the effort:
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com
Mr. Goren, you’re right. Why I was just committing genocide the other day. And I hate it when the loud slave market outside church interferes with my worshipping statues.
That’s a joke, by the way.
For your OT references… the Old Testament is superseded by the New. There is such a thing as old laws no longer being in use. Laws get old and are discarded.
Next, I don’t recall stating the Bible was the supreme authority on moral truth. It’s not. God is. Which you also state, in contradiction with yourself above (you say both the Bible and God are the ultimate authority).
What I mentioned was that the Ten Commandments give some content to the NL. They are not the only content. In my first post I explained how circumstances can change moral judgments of right and wrong. Guess what, circumstances have changed since 3000 years ago. People were barbarians back then. What kind of ethic do you expect them to have? What kind of rules do you expect them to understand?
Only the most general aspects of ethics can remain between then and now. Blaming the OT for being barbaric is blaming people for being barbaric 3000 years ago. It’s too bad they were, but I don’t exactly feel responsible for their barbarity. I suppose if you were born into their culture you would have grown up and totally fixed everything morally and made them perfect people. Good for you.
That, by the way, is highly unlikely. And exactly why the criteria for mortal sin rely on knowledge and consent – because some people never get the chance at either, so their culpability is reduced.
So, what about all those bits of the Old Testament — you know, like every other chapter — where none other than “God” is directly quoted or described as personally committing the most horrible imaginable crimes upon vast swaths of humanity?
Are you claiming that this “God” monster of yours didn’t personally see to the drowning of the planet and the destruction of practically every nation bordering the Mediterranean to the south and east? That is, is it your position that the Bible lies about your history and the actions of your gods?
So, the best that this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving phantasm could come up with was to tell people to torture each other to death for trivial infractions of meaningless laws?
Do you really expect anybody of sound mind to buy that kind of bullshit?
How on Earth can you buy into it, yourself?
Cheers,
b&
Next, I don’t recall stating the Bible was the supreme authority on moral truth. It’s not. God is.
alright.
back to square one.
what is God, and what evidence do you have for it’s existence that isn’t entirely circular?
can’t you see how badly your logic fails?
no, of course you can’t.
sad.
damn apostrophes going where they don’t belong.
*shakes “it’s” fist*
Blaming the OT for being barbaric is blaming people for being barbaric 3000 years ago. It’s too bad they were, but I don’t exactly feel responsible for their barbarity.
all of the barbarities documented in the OT still exist and are committed by people today.
all of them.
so, you’re wrong about everything you said there.
do you now feel responsible for the barbarity of people today?
if not, why not?
Um, like the wars in Africa? Slavery in India? No, not feeling very responsible. True I have not gone there to personally stop them, but I have gone to other countries to do things like that.
Are you responsible for those barbarities?
I already linked to my brief response to why I believe in God. Theism is more rational than atheism. As you all are confirming to me right now, unfortunately. I came here to talk, and all I get it this. sigh. I suppose I’ll leave soon.
If you just wanted to talk to yourself, there was no need to come here, or even to turn on your computer. If you want to talk with (not to but with) the people here, you need to actually address the questions and comments of the regulars.
Your rapid dancing from morality coming from the 10 commandments, to it coming from other parts of the bible as well, to the bible being a barbaric book written by barbarians and not being about your god makes it impossible to even pin down what you believe. Not to mention that you haven’t given any evidence that this inconsistent god of yours even exists.
“What she said.”
Brian Green, isn’t it time for the 50,000 mile checkup on the rocket sleds you’ve got those goalposts mounted on?
Cheers,
b&
Obligatory LOL comment…
Actually what I was (trying) to talk about was the natural law. Because there seemed to be some interest here about it. I guess I misjudged.
Then someone else was interested in a list of grave matters for mortal sins so I suggested he look to the 10Cs, and mentioned that some versions of NL build off of those, but others do not. The 10Cs provide some content to the NL under some version of NL.
However, you have grasped one good thing about NL: it is meant to be universal system to all humans based on the fact that we share a common human nature. So even barbarians will have it, even if it is in a rather general form and needs to be adapted for contemporary use. Luckily the 10Cs are rather general and hence easily adapted.
Oh, really, now?
Can you adapt them so that you can stone people for picking up sticks on a different day of the week? Or that you can electrocute them instead of stone them?
Maybe you can adapt them by substituting another god than YHWH whom you shall not have other gods before?
What about this one?
Exodus 20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
How do you adapt that one without embracing chattel slavery that places wives on the same level as livestock?
I mean, really. You keep prattling on about the Ten Commandments, but I could swear either you’ve never actually read them or you’re hoping we haven’t.
Cheers,
b&
I already linked to my brief response to why I believe in God.
not good enough.
you were asked very simple questions, and basically just kept tossing out red herrings for answers.
you’re right, you should leave.
“Theism is more rational than atheism.”
You can’t apply any measure of rationality unless you are making a decision based on evidence.
what you said is the equivalent of:
“believing in flying unicorns is more rational than not.”
or
“believing in horses is more rational than not”
In each statement, relative rationality is deduced based on the amount of evidence in support of the opposing contentions. This is entirely logical, which of course is what lies behind our definition of “rational” to begin with.
There is plenty of independently corroborating evidence to support the existence of horses (I assume I don’t need to cite it), so it is of course rational to conclude that horses exist. Measured relatively, with knowledge of the available evidence, it would be more rational to conclude they exist than that they don’t.
There is NO evidence of any kind that flying unicorns (living ones anyway) exist.
so in this case, it is not rational to conclude that unicorns exist, and thus it becomes more rational to conclude they do not.
likewise, there is zero independent, corroborating evidence for the existence of the deity described as “god” by most of the 38 thousands sects of xianity and the majority of the rest of the Abrahamic religions.
thus, in relative terms, it is indeed more rational to reject the existence of such a thing, than to maintain it exists with no evidence in support.
which is why you were asked to define “god” to begin with.
if you define god as say… a black hole.
well, then there is good corroborating evidence that black holes exist.
if you define god as say… a giant man in robe and sandals with a long beard and omnipotent powers….
meh, not so much evidence for that one.
all this, of course, is just a very long-winded way of saying…
you’re full of shit.
Your evidence for your Roman Catholic interpretation of God’s existence is that atheism makes less sense than theism. That doesn’t answer the question.
Are you responsible for those barbarities?
Yes. I am.
You are too.
that you can’t see that speaks volumes.
that you can’t hold an honest discussion speaks more though.
Well, then please stop them.
I’m trying.
are you?
I already said I have been.
no, you said you weren’t responsible.
No, actually you said you weren’t trying to stop those atrocities.
You should at least try to be consistent.
Oh, and Mr Green? I read your “why believe” statement. An interesting collection of presuppositions, faulty logic, semantic game-playing, and outright falsehoods. Disappointing, actually.
The feelings of disappointment are mutual. I will leave now. This was an inhospitable engagement. Insofar as I participated in that towards any you I sincerely apologize. I am sorry for provoking, promoting, and participating in these poor interactions.
This was sociologically and psychologically interesting, however, so despite the unpleasantries I am grateful to all of you for that. I’ve written a bit about internet comment-interactions previously where I blog, if you want to read it.
http://moralmindfield.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/internet-in-group-internet-out-group-and-virtue-ethics/
Dr. Coyne thank you very much for helping me get my first comment in. I hold no ill-will towards you I and I hope you have none towards me. I will continue to read your website. Cats, food, travel, bugs, succulent plants, all good stuff! And religion just to be exciting, even if we disagree. Thanks.
This was an inhospitable engagement.
irrelevant.
Insofar as I participated in that towards any you I sincerely apologize.
irrelevant.
This was sociologically and psychologically interesting
irrelevant.
I hold no ill-will towards you I and I hope you have none towards me.
irre… oh what’s the point.
what a waste of time reading your diatribes was, Brian.
so full of empty platitudes and so lacking in any actual content.
you were asked very simple questions, and basically just kept tossing out red herrings for answers.