Mourdock: 2+2=5

[LightSpectra]

I had a conversation with another Catholic on CFC about Catholic interpretations of the Bible and while it may seem that interpreting the Bible oneself is unsatisfactory (I'd agree with you, the Holy Spirit is supposed to interpret it for us), the Catholic interpretations have at times seemed to me to ignore plain meaning and common sense interpretations both of the text itself AND if the earliest patristic writings.

PM me what you think is incorrect. That's quite off-topic but I'll address it.

 

[Crezth]

God is love. If you love your fellow persons you're doing God's work and God is acting in you. Recognizing the root and source of it amplifies the effect.

I could just as capably argue that love is a chemical effect with roots in evolutionary biology. No "God" required... at least in the Abrahamic sense.

I'm happy to discuss biology, but I do not see fit to respond to arguments which assume premises for my argument that I don't actually hold.

Why not take the opportunity to illuminate your positions?

"As a whole, we're happy having our free will to ourselves and would rather not rob anyone of it if we can help it" is a mantra that lets rapists run free and do as they will prior to being caught with evidence pointing to their crimes.

How is it a "mantra?" And furthermore, how is the supposed lack of culpability any different from a God who is content to see women be raped?

I don't actually believe the above paragraph. I doubt you do either. According to the standards you are holding God to, unless you do every possible thing to prevent rape (stripping others of their liberty and privacy to the fullest extent of your powers, and advocating a society built upon such), then you are condoning it because you could be doing more to stop it.

Absolutely not, because I didn't create free will. Since I did not create free will, I have no liberty to take it or the responsibility for it away from others - most notably those who have done nothing "wrong." But if I did create free will, the actions that resulted from it would be my fault. They are wholly contingent on the free will, which is wholly contingent on me.

If God wants to take credit for free will, then he has to take the blame as well.

You say that evil is God's fault because He created the free will from which evil is predicated upon, so the indirect causation is ultimately his fault. Might as well say that the inventor of gunpowder is the cause of all gun-based murders and wars in history since they couldn't exist without gunpowder. It fails to recognize what the actual cause is.

The "actual cause" is God. Is he not the alpha and the omega? The progenitor of all things?

All sin is contradiction of unconditional love. Why God permits sin is speculative: perhaps we have linear imperfect existences so that we may sin and contrast its value with God.

It's all speculative, but I've been playing nice so far. But while we're here: what is unconditional love? To whom does it apply? What does it entail?

You can love somebody that's trying to blow up your neighborhood. That doesn't mean you're letting him blow up the neighborhood. If you really loved him, you would do everything you can to stop him, both for the sake of his neighbors that he ideally should be loving, and to spare his own conscience from the future regret of having murdered so many people.

You misunderstand what love is. It's not a pleasant feeling or state of mind. It's willing the good of others. If I love my enemy, then I wish for him to be saved by God and live a good life of serving his neighbor that brings him happiness.

Why bother? The neighborhood-exploder has done nothing to earn those feelings. It seems rather unfair to hold him in the same esteem as I do those who earnestly try to do good.

 

[Farm Boy]

Not all Protestants are literalists. Methodists, for example, are not. I'll even be generous and ignore dogmatic swipes at the roots of Protestantism in the form of Luther.

 

[Farm Boy]

what is unconditional love? To whom does it apply? What does it entail?



Why bother? The neighborhood-exploder has done nothing to earn those feelings. It seems rather unfair to hold him in the same esteem as I do those who earnestly try to do good.

Well, of course the would be "exploder(hehehe!)" hasn't done anything to earn unconditional love. Unconditional love is unconditional. Earning it would be a condition. Therefore it applies to everyone, everywhere. Love does not mean you let people do whatever they want(necessarily, though it may sometimes). My son would rather like to play with scissors, I don't let him. He would rather like to pull on his cousin's hair, I don't let him. Unconditional love isn't the burning in your loins at a member of the desired gender(though English uses the same word for that situation) and it isn't the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you hug a friend or relative(though there are aspects of it in that, assuredly). Unconditional love is a prioritization of others in your life that you want the best possible for them genuinely for them, not for a perceived return benefit to onesself. Unconditional love could be found in almost any form, thus it is hard to put it in examples.

 

[Phrossack]

Entirely relevant:

Spoiler :

 

[Farm Boy]

Entirely relevant:

Spoiler :

That entirely misrepresents the meaning of unconditional. Love offered unconditionally is still the same love, it merely has no prerequisites for being given. But after all, it's only a comic strip author, they aren't all created equally.

 

[Angst]

The Reverend Jesse Jackson is balls to the walls stupid with some regularity. Though I may actually agree with how he got arrested yesterday, I'll have to look it up.

Cool.

It's just fun, you know, because a lot of crazies make it overseas to where I live, and they're all loudmouths, and they're all conservatives or Christians.

Example: This thread.

Including some posters.

 

[Crezth]

Well, of course the would be "exploder(hehehe!)" hasn't done anything to earn unconditional love. Unconditional love is unconditional. Earning it would be a condition.

Hence why I ask "why bother." I see no compelling reason to love unconditionally.

 

[innonimatu]

According to Orthodox Judaism and Roman Catholicism, the only sins that are never excusable by circumstance are rape and blasphemy.

Odd, because the Roman Catholic Church has been very effective at excusing the serial rapers it shelters inside the institution.

 

[Antilogic]

Are the Republicans trying to lose the Senate? They've already screwed the pooch trying to take Sherrod Brown's and Claire MacCaskill's seats, Mr. Cosmo is trailing in the polls against Elizabeth Warren.

 

[Farm Boy]

Hence why I ask "why bother." I see no compelling reason to love unconditionally.

Well, I guess there isn't any compulsion. Nobody is going to force you to. It doesn't feel like the easiest path a lot of the time. I think it probably leads to being a happier person, if one can pull it off with any degree of accuracy. It probably leads to everyone being happier and healthier people in the long run.

Now people still aren't going to be perfect regardless, but they can probably be better than they are otherwise.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Still a bit boorish.

Yes, but is it boorish enough?

 

[Farm Boy]

Yes, but is it boorish enough?

Haven't decided. I suppose you have to be just boorish enough to fit in. If you care about that sort of thing.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Haven't decided. I suppose you have to be just boorish enough to fit in. If you care about that sort of thing.

I can act all cool and state I couldn't care less about fitting in.

But we both know how credible I'd sound.

It's not "pick and choose". There's very good reasons for all of it, if you would investigate.

Indeed there is. Social and cultural influences already set your morality, and based on that you read the Bible through your morally tainted glasses. There's a lot of selective observation going on.

But I agree mostly that these things are done on reasonable motivations. I am willing to grant you (universal "you", as in "you who tout the Bible as a source for your morality") the benefit of the doubt that none of you believe it is fine to murder people indiscriminately until you read or were told about "thou shall not kill". I believe those values are/were already deeply instilled in you by the constant influence of the society you live in.

 

[LightSpectra]

I could just as capably argue that love is a chemical effect with roots in evolutionary biology. No "God" required... at least in the Abrahamic sense.

Love isn't a chemical effect. It's too encompassing a word to be reduced to psychology.

Absolutely not, because I didn't create free will. Since I did not create free will, I have no liberty to take it or the responsibility for it away from others - most notably those who have done nothing "wrong." But if I did create free will, the actions that resulted from it would be my fault. They are wholly contingent on the free will, which is wholly contingent on me.

If God wants to take credit for free will, then he has to take the blame as well.

That doesn't make much sense once it is taken to its logical terminus. God didn't create evil either; that was a result of free will, which in itself is morally neutral. By that regard, He has no responsibility to take evil away from others, since all He actually made was the capability for evil.

Back to the gunpowder analogy, the inventor of it didn't shoot the cannon shells that have killed millions in history. He didn't even create the cannons. He made something that made it possible to be an artilleryman. Blaming him for the sins of those who have utilized his technology is pointless: it accomplishes nothing, it fails to recognize where the fault actually is. It fallaciously considers the primary and indirect causes to be of equal worth. I doubt you do that for anything else. If your sink is clogged, you don't demand the prosecution of metallurgical unions that have enabled the building of a house whose sink could possibly be clogged.

The "actual cause" is God. Is he not the alpha and the omega? The progenitor of all things?

No, He is only the cause very indirectly, to the point where He is not the one culpable. Perhaps a bad person is the way he is because he was neglected by his parents. Nevertheless, we imprison the criminal and not the parents, do we not?

It's all speculative, but I've been playing nice so far. But while we're here: what is unconditional love? To whom does it apply? What does it entail?

Unconditional love is willing the good of another at all times, without demanding any thing in return. It applies firstly to God, secondly to your neighbor, and lastly to yourself. And it entails living a life of servitude and forsaking pleasures and honors to yourself, which paradoxically betters yourself.

Why bother? The neighborhood-exploder has done nothing to earn those feelings. It seems rather unfair to hold him in the same esteem as I do those who earnestly try to do good.

You're right, he's done nothing to earn unconditional love. But neither have either of us and God loves us just the same.

You should love your enemy because he's a human being, capable of both good and evil. It makes you a better person, and it opens the door for him to seek redemption, rather than staying on the narrow road because he's unforgivable.

Odd, because the Roman Catholic Church has been very effective at excusing the serial rapers it shelters inside the institution.

I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen. Me defending the opinion that God can derive good from evil without condoning the evil has inevitably lead to the abuse scandals. Smells like desperation.

I have already spoken about this in about a dozen other threads on this forum. Individuals are the ones who have sheltered the rapists. It was also individuals, no less Catholic than the ones behind the scandals, that have reported the abusers. And I won't talk about that anymore here because that's off-topic and it's been sufficiently discussed elsewhere.

Indeed there is. Social and cultural influences already set your morality, and based on that you read the Bible through your morally tainted glasses. There's a lot of selective observation going on.

By whom? The notion that the Bible is perfectly readable to anybody that picks it up is what I am arguing against. It has to be read in the context of the interpretation of the Church Fathers; the people who were taught by the authors themselves, natively spoke the language the New Testament was written in (Koine Greek), and have continued that tradition up to the present day.

(universal "you", as in "you who tout the Bible as a source for your morality")

The Bible is not the source of my morality. The source of my morality is natural law, ethical principles derived from logical reasoning and empirical knowledge. The authors of the Bible are wise people that have done a good job at describing ethical principles in spiritual, poetic, and historical ways, however.

It's frustrating that this "where does it say that in the Bible?" mentality even exists at all. The Bible is not the root of Christian doctrines. The root of Christian doctrines is the apostolic authority that has come from Christ Himself, and the New Testament is the oldest and best textual recognition of this. The Bible is divine because it was written by the divine inspiration of the authority of the Catholic Church, contrary to the popular perception that the Catholic Church exists because the Bible suggests it should.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

In that case I apologise for my assumption. When I said "you" I should have said "those"

 

[Crezth]

Love isn't a chemical effect. It's too encompassing a word to be reduced to psychology.

Every aspect of every understanding of the word "love" can be explained through evolutionary biology and the like.

That doesn't make much sense once it is taken to its logical terminus. God didn't create evil either; that was a result of free will, which in itself is morally neutral. By that regard, He has no responsibility to take evil away from others, since all He actually made was the capability for evil.

Would there be any evil without God?

Back to the gunpowder analogy, the inventor of it didn't shoot the cannon shells that have killed millions in history. He didn't even create the cannons. He made something that made it possible to be an artilleryman. Blaming him for the sins of those who have utilized his technology is pointless: it accomplishes nothing, it fails to recognize where the fault actually is. It fallaciously considers the primary and indirect causes to be of equal worth. I doubt you do that for anything else. If your sink is clogged, you don't demand the prosecution of metallurgical unions that have enabled the building of a house whose sink could possibly be clogged.

So free will is a tool in this analogy? You'll have to forgive me if I don't follow because it seems to me you'd need some capability to use free will as a tool to begin with. That is to say: free will is what permits us to use tools with judgement, so what permits us to use free will with judgement? I mean where is the origination?

It is original in itself, of course, and it is precisely this abstraction that separates it from gunpowder or pipes. Giving someone a gun is one thing; giving someone the capability to use the gun for evil is quite another. A popular quip is "guns don't kill people, people kill people." I think you can see where I'm going with this. Having a tool and being a free agent is different from having a tool and not being a free agent.

No, He is only the cause very indirectly, to the point where He is not the one culpable. Perhaps a bad person is the way he is because he was neglected by his parents. Nevertheless, we imprison the criminal and not the parents, do we not?

Without him, there'd be no evil. As stated, it seems that if there was no God to give us free will, there'd be no evil, which should be morally superior to having any evil.

Unless God is tolerant of evil, which he certainly seems to be from what you've said. I propose that no such entity can be described as moral.

Unconditional love is willing the good of another at all times, without demanding any thing in return. It applies firstly to God, secondly to your neighbor, and lastly to yourself. And it entails living a life of servitude and forsaking pleasures and honors to yourself, which paradoxically betters yourself.

Why should I love god?

Why should I love my neighbor?

Why should I love myself?

How does it "better" me?

You're right, he's done nothing to earn unconditional love. But neither have either of us and God loves us just the same.

At best, this makes him a sycophant. I don't see it as meriting reciprocation in and of itself, especially when he's essentially a tyrant in every other upwards-facing aspect of his diktat.

You should love your enemy because he's a human being, capable of both good and evil. It makes you a better person, and it opens the door for him to seek redemption, rather than staying on the narrow road because he's unforgivable.

Why does that matter? Why not simply love people who choose to be good?

 

[Borachio]

Hey, Mr LightSpectra, that last post of yours mostly makes sense to me. Ooer!

 

[Farm Boy]

Why does that matter? Why not simply love people who choose to be good?

Why rehabilitate criminals instead of executing them? Why stop to help injured motorists? Why do any number of things that could be considered helpful or nice to people who are not perfect? Because we are all imperfect. We all screw up. This is pretty much the same topic that was loosely discussed in the "criminal hugger" trainwreck of a thread.

 

[peter grimes]

Love isn't a chemical effect. It's too encompassing a word to be reduced to psychology.

I'd be careful with here, if I were you. Are you willing to revise your views on the primacy and importance of "love" if it can be shown that it is simply a result of chemistry?

This is the problem that people face when they use religion / spirituality to explain stuff. Science inevitably comes along and say "Hey - it turns out that there's nothing magical or miraculous about xxx. God can't be residing there." and religion is forced to retreat their gods into ever smaller gaps.

Neuroscience is coming close to closing the gaps in the human mind that formerly were occupied by demons, angels, spirits, souls, whatever you want to call them.

So what will happen to your philosophical construct if when it turns out that Love is chemistry? All that talk about unconditional love will read as special pleading.

I think it's probably smarter for the religions to hedge a bit; or better yet, stop making claims about how the world works altogether.