Owning Mahowny

Quote: Evenbob

Yes indeed, from their viewpoint. The Japanese took a
different attitude. The universe itself had no opinion,
how could it. Opinions are the work of man.

Yes indeed, opinions are the work of man so you need to separate opinions and feelings from the actions themselves. Please look and think about this, it is obvious from the law of contradiction that if I say something is A and you say it is not-A then one of us is obviously wrong! Something cannot be both A and not-A at the same time. This fact is all around you; a dog cannot be both a dog and a cat at the same time, no matter what your opinion might be. A morally good action cannot be evil at the same time, no matter what someone's opinions or viewpoint might be - after all as you say they are only the work of man.

Quote: FrGamble

A morally good action cannot be evil at the same time.

You have a problem with this because you believe
evil and good and morality exist in the universe
itself, outside of man. I do not. I believe man invents
good and evil to suit himself, that there are no evil
acts on their own. They are what they are with no
labels. That's why a man being murdered can be
evil to the family of the man, and a blessing to the
undertaker and grave digger. It puts food on their
table. If the murder really was evil to the universe,
it would also be evil to profit from it, and obviously
it's not.

Quote: Evenbob

. I believe man invents
good and evil to suit himself, that there are no evil
acts on their own. They are what they are with no
labels. That's why a man being murdered can be
evil to the family of the man, and a blessing to the
undertaker and grave digger. It puts food on their
table. If the murder really was evil to the universe,
it would also be evil to profit from it, and obviously
it's not.

You and far too many people believe this way and it is nonsensical. It is the height of selfish sickness. You are justifying vile actions as good if they happen to suit a certain person. Of course there is no example you could possible use to show that the actual act of murder or rape is a good thing so you continue to bring out this tired example of the undertaker. The undertaker has no part in the action so how could his service that he provides after the fact somehow retroactively make the murder of a child a good thing? Simply ask yourself if the grave digger started killing people so he would have more people to bury would that be a good thing? Of course not! Cannot the undertaker make a living in any way other than depending on murder? I know a lot of funeral home directors and they would be very happy to not have to bury those who are viciously killed in a robbery.

Your problem is that you desperately want to think that good and bad do not exist in the universe outside of our selfish constructs. If you want to hold that view then admit actions are indeed objectively good or bad, but then argue that it is not the universe or God that make this so but we do. You would be still wrong, but at least closer to the truth.

Quote: FrGamble

You and far too many people believe this way and it is nonsensical. It is the height of selfish sickness. .

You have to feel that way, you have no choice. Your
church tells you to. I have no such restrictions. You
have an agenda. You're the local Chevy salesman
telling all the VW drivers they are insane not to
drive a Chevy.

I will totally come over to your side if you can just
give one single example of morality outside of
man. Just one. It's obvious the universe is a moral
place, you say. One example will convince me.

I could give you ten and I'm not sure what is wrong with the many examples we've talked about above but how about "thou shall not commit adultery" as an example of morality outside of man? I do think your question and recent thinking have been so strange that I wonder if I understood you correctly. You may need to clarify what you mean by "morality outside of man".

I mean where is morality in the world outside
of what man invents. One man can murder
any man whenever he wants, and when he
does, nothing happens. So we invent laws,
based on morality we created.

I can steal something from Walmart and the
universe doesn't seem to care. I can do
it a hundred times and it could care less.

What must have happened is, long ago
people noticed this. So they thought it must
be that god will punish you AFTER the fact,
after you die. Because crime DOES pay, that's
why they do it. It pays well, in fact.

The world has no morality in and of
itself, until we invent it. There is no good
and evil until we see the effect of an event
on our lives. Then we label it. Before then,
it's neither good or evil, it just is.

I don't think this is correct. If you do drugs for example, whether you get caught by our man made laws or not your life will be ruined. If you live by the sword as a murderer you will die by the sword in a violent way. If you lie, steal, or cheat it will ruin your life and come back to haunt you, without every having to be charged with breaking a human law. Our laws are a reflection of a morality that we did not create, but rather observed. Violence leads to destruction and death of others and the one causing it. Gluttony leads to sickness and illness. Of course in my opinion we as a whole have also been greatly helped by the teachings of Christ and the Scriptures, but even then they are only helping us to more clearly see what we already know. Sin leads to problems in society and in our souls.

Non-human morality demonstrated:

Quote: FrGamble

If you do drugs for example, whether you get caught by our man made laws or not your life will be ruined.

I feel safe in asking this: have you ever had a drink?

Once you count alcohol and tobacco, I'm williing to bet a majority of the population "does" drugs. More if you also add caffeine (I know I have a delicious caffeine dependency, which I manage rather well).

Quote: FrGamble

Our laws are a reflection of a morality that we did not create, but rather observed. .

We observe foibles in other people and create
morality as a result. The morality does not exist
outside of us creating it.

There's a story Joseph Campbell tells in the Power
of Myth. He's swimming in the university pool one
day with the bishop. The bishop asks him if he's
a Catholic, and Campbell replies that he used to
be. The bishop says 'Do you still believe in god',
and JC replies, 'No, Father, I do not'. The bishop
says 'Well, I suppose there is no way to prove god
exists'. To which Campbell responds: 'If there were,
Father, what would be the need of faith."

That's the problem with this conversation. You, as
a Catholic, have to take it on faith that morality
and god and good and evil exist on their own outside
of us. That's the point of it. If you could prove in
any way they existed separately, religion would have
no purpose.