Mother Teresa: Hell's Angel.

[MC Paul Barman]

Perhaps we're speaking past each other. I am arguing that all morality is essentially subjective, and so calling morality objective or subjective doesn't lend or detract any strength from it. What lends strength to individual moral beliefs is only the strength with which the individual holds them.

Doesn't lend any strength? If there's a claim that a certain act is objectively wrong (whatever that act might be), I don't see how that would not strengthen the case against performing a certain act.
Compared to someone saying, "I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just personally opposed to that act."
One claim against the act definitely lends strength to the claim that it should be avoided.

I was referring to this paragraph:

I don't see anything wrong with that contention. Mind you, there are natural law theorists who are not Catholic and come to the same conclusions. It's not the Catholic Church superimposing it's own esoteric view of natural law on nature and then telling others, "find what you may, but it must be inline with us".

 

[FinalFight]

Overpopulation and the suffering and squalor that comes with it = Moral.

Then we can deploy Mother Teresa and fund some convents!

Religion is a racket.

Indeed.

 

[LionExMachina]

We're not bursting at the seems with overpopulation.

Without any real rancor:

The populations of Ethiopia and Nigeria could triple the next fifty years. The average African woman has 5.5 their lifetime. Education about birth control is vital to help prevent the human suffering that will surely occur if these trends are left to grow unchecked. How can there be advancement when half the population is either pregnant or taking care of babies? How can they find time to go to school?

Reproductive autonomy is the hallmark of any society that wants to advance.

You are inflicting your world view that is based on your experiences on a people and a situation that is much different than yours.

Like the missionaries that came before you, it seems to have more to do with control first, than any truly altruistic intent. (Christianity, like Islam is an invasive species that has done much harm to Africa.)

I'm not trying to be combative or witty at your expense, (your threads in Mayberry are whimsical and mostly funny). but I never thought I'd have you pegged as a Ripskater type.

 

[klnOmega]

Thats the beauty of science. When wrong, they can actually test and retest until they come up with an answer that is repeatable.

I fail to see where this is done in religion? It's just... this book says believe in nonsense and thats it.

Cool. So you admit that scientists can be wrong.

Can you stop blindly adhering to whatever dogma is trending at the moment and pretending that it is absolute and eternal truth?

 

[wellz6]

There is a main and clearly obvious purpose for it: progeny.

That doesn't mean it's the only sole purpose for it. You don't think sex is also meant to be enjoyed by a couple in love with each other?

 

[Uchi Mata]

Doesn't lend any strength? If there's a claim that a certain act is objectively wrong (whatever that act might be), I don't see how that would not strengthen the case against performing a certain act.
Compared to someone saying, "I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just personally opposed to that act."
One claim against the act definitely lends strength to the claim that it should be avoided.

In a world in which objective morality were possible yes, that would be true. I contend that it is not possible in the world in which we live for morality to be objective. There are no natural laws of morality ala gravity.

I don't see anything wrong with that contention. Mind you, there are natural law theorists who are not Catholic and come to the same conclusions. It's not the Catholic Church superimposing it's own esoteric view of natural law on nature and then telling others, "find what you may, but it must be inline with us".

It's exactly that. It's the Catholic church (or any church using this argument, no reason to single out Catholics) claiming that its mores are consistent with natural law by defining natural law to be consistent with its mores. In that paragraph he pretty clearly states that the sexual morality endorsed by the Catholic church would have arisen naturally anyway because the morality of the church is consistent with natural law. I think that's BS, and it's clearly demonstrated to be so by the fact that such a morality had not arisen prior to the Catholic church's establishment of it (certainly not in any universal sense), and that subsequent societies often deviated from it. If it were really a natural law that would rarely be the case. How many societies have stricture against murder? Pretty much all of them. How many have rules regarding celibacy of the priesthood (which wasn't even a feature of the Catholic church for much of its early existence as I'm sure you're aware)? Not many. The whole Christian notion that merely to look at a woman with lust is adultery is not one that is shared by the vast majority of societies, not really even shared by most contemporary non-evangelical Christians. It's a specious argument to suggest that the whole of Christian morality is objective because it's in accordance with natural law when it clearly isn't unless you define natural law in such a way as to force it into accord with Christian morality.

 

[Uchi Mata]

There is a main and clearly obvious purpose for it: progeny.

I'd argue that from an evolutionary perspective the purpose is pleasure, and progeny are the byproduct. The pleasurable nature of sex is what induces us and all other life forms to reproduce. If it was unpleasant we'd be unlikely to be having this conversation.

 

[Brazilian HKD]

Ok. I'll give you one. The only alternative to not using condoms if you want to avoid getting pregnant or catching an STI is abstinence. It has been proven that abstinence only education doesn't work. Take the state of Mississippi for example, that pushes abstinence only education the most in the US. It has one of the worst teen birth rate and STI rates out of all states. This proves that abstinence education doesn't work. Condoms are a logical way to stop people from getting pregnant and avoiding catching STIs.



http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/20/3310751/abstinence-failures-charts/

http://www.siecus.org/document/docW...wDocument&documentid=201&documentFormatId=257

Thanks, its so much better when people provide arguments instead of simply assertions

 

[JonesBones]

I'd argue that from an evolutionary perspective the purpose is pleasure, and progeny are the byproduct. The pleasurable nature of sex is what induces us and all other life forms to reproduce. If it was unpleasant we'd be unlikely to be having this conversation.

Everything leads to reproduction and survival. Eating feels good too. The need to reproduce and take in nourishment precedes pleasure in common descent.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Everything leads to reproduction and survival. Eating feels good too. The need to reproduce and take in nourishment precedes pleasure in common descent.

Yes, agreed. I'm not sure that really undermines my point. We generally don't eat with reproduction as our motivation, we eat because we're hungry and food tastes good. Reproduction is the proximate cause of our eating the same way it is of sex. Those things are pleasurable because they lead to survival and reproduction.

 

[JonesBones]

Yes, agreed. I'm not sure that really undermines my point. We generally don't eat with reproduction as our motivation, we eat because we're hungry and food tastes good. Reproduction is the proximate cause of our eating the same way it is of sex. Those things are pleasurable because they lead to survival and reproduction.

They are very tempting. Dostoevsky has made some of the most brilliant arguments, for both sides, regarding Christianity. He said that most men only replicate themselves. They pass down their genes. That is all they do. Few exceptional men, "utter a new word". They come up with a new idea. A cultural mutation. Culture in humanity has power. It causes things. It shapes people and civilization. It can make us suppress instinct, or even be conditioned to hate it.

 

[Uchi Mata]

They are very tempting. Dostoevsky has made some of the most brilliant arguments, for both sides, regarding Christianity. He said that most men only replicate themselves. They pass down their genes. That is all they do. Few exceptional men, "utter a new word". They come up with a new idea. A cultural mutation. Culture in humanity has power. It causes things. It shapes people and civilization. It can make us suppress instinct, or even be conditioned to hate it.

True enough. Humanity is the only species I know of that allows conscious reasoning to overcome immediate biological imperatives.

 

[Orgasmo]

Mother Teresa was a friend to the suffering poor, so much so that she wanted to keep them there. Despite sitting on a mountain of money from donations, she kept her hospice in miserable conditions since she thought it would bring the sick closer to god through collective suffering. Her definition of "help" is very debatable, and I find it personally repulsive. There is an element of cruelty in her beliefs.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

Her nobel speech where she named the spreading of condom use as the greatest threat to world peace, says quite a lot!
The fact that the massive donations people made to her was used mainly to found hundreds of convents in her name worldwide, while her hospice remained poor, underfunded hellholes, says a lot too.

Anjez

 

[computer fogie]

Mother Teresa was a friend to the suffering poor, so much so that she wanted to keep them there. Despite sitting on a mountain of money from donations, she kept her hospice in miserable conditions since she thought it would bring the sick closer to god through collective suffering. Her definition of "help" is very debatable, and I find it personally repulsive. There is an element of cruelty in her beliefs.

There you go. Few people have bothered to read about her, so any criticism is answered with anger and indignation. "How DARE you criticize Mother Fucking Teresa!" But the truth, as usual, bursts that bubble. She didn't do a damn thing to help peoples lives, only give comfort to a few who could not be helped.