116. And (remember) when God will say (on the Day of Resurrection): "O 'Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary)! Did you say unto men: 'Worship me and my mother as two gods besides God?' " He will say: "Glory be to You! It was not for me to say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, You would surely have known it. You know what is in my inner-self though I do not know what is in Yours, truly, You, only You, are the All-Knower of all that is hidden and unseen.(Al:ma'idah) holy Quran
or the many scnadals under his watch like the Valerie Plame scandal, the Alberto Gonzales Scandal, and others? I agree completely with Father Barron that Abortion is morally repugnant. But a lot of people act like demonizing Obama and voting Republican is the solution, when some of their moral positions are absolutely repugnant in many cases as well...........
To the people saying Obama is 'wicked', is he more wicked than George Bush who launched an illegal, pre-emptive war in Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 1 million people in terms of total combatant and civilian Casualities on both sides? A war that Pope John Paul ii himself condemned very harshly as an unjust war? Or the fact that bush sanctioned torture in Gitmo, which went against the constitution of the United States?(continued)
God bless you, now, I dont think Obama is a good politician he is killing the Republic and reaches too far into peoples freedoms. I am able to be a free thinking Catholic because of the Constitution. First the Bible then the Consititution.
Natural Law has a way of showing its reality. Powerful stuff. Funny how, as of today, the HHS contraception mandate clearly shows one of the effects of Natural Law: Obama trying to deny and escape from his deep conscience.
@rhlogic Obama has been corrupted by Washington. He is not the same man I voted for. He must know deep down inside that the anti-abortion movement is today's analogue for the anti-slavery movement.
@Nonamearisto I agree, and hopefully this knowledge in him comes up to the surface before is too late for him and for America. That is my prayer intention.
Father, you seem very smart but you are convinced Obama didn't have a ghostwriter? Sorry but I don't think so. Also your apparent respect for this man causes me to tune out everything else you may say. God bless.
@samspinchat Well, what's your evidence for the claim that he had a ghost-writer? And friend, I respect certain gifts that the President has. Take a look at my most recent video for a sharp critique of him and his policies.
@wordonfirevideo Father, google "Audacity of Hope ghostwriter". Many people believe he had a ghostwriter, best guess is his speechwriter Jon Favreau (not the actor of the same name). That book was part of the process of getting Obama elected and I really don't think he has the skills to write a book, just like he can't give a speech without his teleprompter.
Your not-so-subtle jabs are retarded. I guarantee you, he could write a better book than you could in his sleep...even if you spent your entire life writing it.
Please, Fr. Barron, do not compare this wicked man Obama to President Lincoln, not even in the capacity of writing! Obama is a disgrace to this country. He supports the murder of unborn children, he despises this country and all it stands for and he continues to deliberately provoke class/race warfare.
He is an evil man who MUST be defeated in the upcoming election.
Father Barron, this was excellent! Now, can we spell out these core, non-negotiable values? It seems we agree that we have the right to our own lives. Do we agree that our lives are not owned by the government and subject to its capricious laws? There is a far more greater moral value here. We (or God) owns our lives and what we do with these lives. What is slavery except the taking of our labor?
Great argument, it is because of people like this that, should you ever become terminally ill, you will suffer needlessly for months as your body slowly shuts down and you writhe in agony. Furthermore, should your child ever be born with anencephaly, you will have to keep it alive even though it is born deaf, unconscious, blind, and without feeling.
@TheMischaReviews A life of suffering is better than no life at all. I'm sure Fr Barron would agree with me to embrace such an end if God wills. By the way, life is full of suffering from the day we are born. You either embrace it with the good or be bitter all your life. Being terminally ill or having a child with special needs is not something WE fear. We'll thank God for every healthy child and year of life, but we won't live it in the fear of selfishness.
@TheMischaReviews Well, your revelation would be way wrong. Actually, it is because of having been through suffering that I know this. To the contrary, it is those with a charmed life that don't know how to deal with things that don't go their way. The happiest people on earth are the third world poor and the most miserable are the worlds elite (including most americans) who never know hunger or thirst or want.
Question, when Jesus says, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Does neighbor apply to a child? A new born baby? A son? A daughter? An unborn fetus? Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. How can this command to love, given by Jesus himself be fulfilled, if our neighborhood has one less neighbor in it through abortion? Right to choose and abortion or right to live in love, which is greater? What did Jesus say?
@CentristFiasco I think that Obama's true view is "pro choice" in the sense of self-determination but I doubt that he could possibly support partial birth abortion which is essentially have the kid and kill it. I've lived in the northeast and southeast of America. The republicans aren't just rooted in the deep south. They've always been the party of wealth, elitisim and segregation. Obama's presidency seems to have spiralled out of control. It's a poisoned chalice.
I was pro choice based on the belief that most abortions were the last resort for women with little or no financial means or those who had been victims of sexual assault. Over time, I've come believe that in a global society where most things appear to be commodities, children themselves have become disposable if inconvenient. Partial birth abortions are shocking. With too much to lose, the Democratic party will never do a U-turn on this issue. We need to acknowledge what abortion is.
Abortion is a sick scourge that is ruining our country. It all started with the "pill". Since the blessing of saving yourself for marriage was removed by the pill, people became their own gods, first, by deciding for themselves what is "right" and "wrong" (fornication, adultery etc) and then deciding who should live or die amongst their children. (NO-ONE has that "right") If the most innocent of our children have no rights, who are they going to say its "OK" to kill next? You? Me? It has to stop
"Extreme purposeless pain and suffering is a bad thing. That's an objective fact. You disagree? Then allow someone to skin you alive, and get back to me proving torture is actually good thing"
That is why it subjective.
Duh because obviously if you were being skinned alive you would claim that it was a bad thing.. yet the person torturing you might disagree..
@badpanda84@badpanda84 ""Extreme purposeless pain and suffering is a bad thing. That's an objective fact. You disagree? Then allow someone to skin you alive, and get back to me proving torture is actually good thing"
--That is why it subjective."
--No that is not "why" it is subjective. This is both false and invalid. Try again.
"that is why you in a court you are innoncent until proven guilty."
--That's only because you don't have enough empirical evidence to establish anything either way, so you suspend judgment. But if you want to argue that "2+2=4" and "torture is bad" are false in a court of law just because we don't have evidence for these things, BE MY GUEST!
@grunderlyme " But if you want to argue that "2+2=4" and "torture is bad" are false in a court of law just because we don't have evidence for these things, BE MY GUEST! "
But we dont have enough evidence that torture is bad.
Just saying " torture is bad becuase to me its self-evidenet is never going to hold up in court.
Just like saying its self-evident to me he commited murder isn't going to hold up in court
@badpanda84 "But we dont have enough evidence that torture is bad."
--Neither do we have enough evidence the Law of Gravity works in all times and places, past, present, and future. Nor do we have evidence 2+2=4 is true. It is an axiom not even demonstrable in mathematics. No one can prove it. So the Law of Gravity is false? So 2+2=4 is false? You're too fast for us!
@badpanda84 "Just like saying its self-evident to me he commited murder isn't going to hold up in cour"
--Right, because it is an EMPIRICAL claim requiring EMPIRICAL evidence. "2+2=4" is NOT an empirical claim, nor is "torturing innocent persons is wrong" an empirical claim. Nor is the logical Law of Non-contradiction an empiral claim. They are all self-evident a priori AXIOMS. There are other ways of knowing things than gathering evidence for them, genius.
@grunderlyme "There are other ways of knowing things than gathering evidence for them, genius. "
Right but when you say "knowing" are you talking about knowing like how chirstain "know" the bible is true and how Muslims "know" that there are 72 virgins in heaven.
@badpanda84 Almost every peer-reviwed PhD academic philosopher, theist and atheist, alike can defend Moral Knowledge. You need a crash-course on Moral Epistemology. Here is a good place to start proving how upsettingly wrong you are:
@badpanda84 Here's a proof of your egregious error from Michael Heumer, a well-known PhD philosopher published widely in peer-reviewed journals. Contrary to what you stipulate over and over again without a valid argument, we DO have moral knowledge
@badpanda84 Oh, and here's a kid on youtube that tears down your "Veto". He's got it right:
/watch?v=dz8frsZHSe4
He is just repeating arguments already widely made by real Academic Philosophers. But this should be easy enough for you to understand. You need to become much more familiar with the actual landscape in Moral Epistemology before trying to attack it. So far, your arguments bottom out in special pleading, self-defeating double-standards, and invalid non-sequiturs.
"An act may thus be good for one person but bad for another, or good in one cultural setting but bad in another, but cannot be either good or bad full stop."
that is also a good definiion of moral relvatism
So stop askign stupid questions like "Where are your proofs that "2+2=4" and "torturing persons is wrong" are false, or not knwon to be true?"
Because torturing people can be either good or bad depending -- its not a matter of being alway true or alway false
@badpanda84 "moral and ethics -- Maths is diffrenet."
--But now you are special pleading. Why is math different? Like moral axioms like "happiness is better than misery" cannot be proven just like mathematical axioms like "2+2=4." They are self-evident truths from which further propositions are logically deduced. A proposition is self-evident if and only if there is no way to rationally call it into question. Not once have you given me ANY reason for thinking the above axioms can be false.
@badpanda84 ""But now you are special pleading. Why is math different"--because for a start the term proof in mathmaticis has a specific meaning."
--SO DOES ETHICS. Ethics is JUST LIKE mathematics with respect to starting from self-evident propositions and logically deducing conclusions (or theorems). Did you even bother reading those multiple links I sent you from PhD academic peer-reviewed philosophers SHOWING EXACTLY THIS? Ethical conclusions are logically demonstrable, just like math.
In mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration (within the accepted standards of the field) that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proofs are obtained from deductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single exception. An unproven proposition that is believed to be true is known as a conjecture.
@badpanda84 "Proofs in mathematics is a convincing demonstration"
--Ya think? So are ethical proofs. I gave multiple examples below. But ALL proofs, in both mathematics and ethics, follow from assumptions that cannot be proven to be true. Like I keep saying ad infinitum, mathematician Kurt Godel, famous mathematician, proved that self-contained axiomatic systems will always be incomplete because they rest on axioms and definitions (assumptions) which cannot be proven by the system itself.
@grunderlyme the only arguemnt agaist moral relvisism I can see on that site are
"In some cases, it does seem to be right to judge one culture to be morally superior to another, to make cross-cultural comparisons. To make cross-cultural comparisons, though, one needs a cross-cultural standard, which is precisely what moral relativism says there isn’t."
Which I agree -- people like to judge one culture to be morally superior to another -- but that is still there subjeticve opion
@badpanda84 "If that is the case they we would belive that vampire, fairies , goblins , the flying spagetti monster.."
--Yeah, we shouldn't believe self-evident axioms like "2+2=4" and "Torturing and raping innocent persons is wrong" are true because creatures like fairies and goblins self-evidently exist. You're too fast for us!
Its been a great week here in Ireland. Our new priminister finally gave the pope a proper going over re: the lies, cover ups, and ongoing abuses of the catholic church in relation to innocent children. Telling him that the rule of law supercedes canon law. Not being from Ireland, you would never appreciate the control the church had on all levels of government, the police, and everyday people. The church was never questioned and we have a history of destroyed lives because of blind faith!
the only moral clarity God accepts is that we are all sinners, our righteousnes is filthy rags, indeed even our righteousnes is sin, and we CANT please God under those terms for moral law is what damns us.
a just society? we cannot even make ourself just individually let alone the society
Obama's "wisdom" in his book is all very well. But his deeds since elected show that it is all empty hypocrisy, flummery, vacuous gestures.
His broken promises show that he was a deliberate liar. he stills tortures in guantanamo, the patriot act is still in force. he says that America is a great and good nation when its deeds show the absolute contrary.
when the left is as foul as the right then there is no political hope for that country.
@Strefanasha , you didnt think that the fraud named Barry Obama was going to keep his promises , did you ? You forgot he also kept military tribunals, too
Fr. Barron, I'm a new Catholic and relatively recently a pro-lifer. I've also recently learned that most a woman's fertilized eggs don't implant. And sometimes her body will "attack" the fetus as an intruder, causing a miscarriage. If God even loves zygotes, why has he made the human body in such a way that most of them don't even implant, let alone get born? Is heaven mostly populated with people who never grew larger than a few hundred cells?
You talk about the church upholding moral absolutes, but what is the church doing to oppose actual injustice and poverty? It opposes condom use in aids ridden africa and abortion, and what do those two things have in common?they dont require any sacrifices for the catholic church to oppose them, whilst fighting real injustice, would eat into the churches coffers. So basically the church can act high and mighty opposing abortion, but i dont see catholics adopting unwanted babies.
@chuckstar666 Then you're not looking very hard, friend. Every diocese in this country has a program to help women with unwanted pregnancies. And Project Rachel, which counsels and financially supports those who have had abortions, is ubiquitous in the Catholic world.
@wordonfirevideo ....[cont] (8) It is wrong to punish someone for a crime she did not commit (9) Genocide is wrong (10) All things considered, happiness is preferable to suffering (11) All things considered, modesty is preferable to immodesty (12) If it is wrong for one person to suffer X, it is wrong for two people to suffer X (14) Kindness is a virtue and not a vice (15) Knowledge is a good. (16) Friendship is a good (17) Life is a good.
@wordonfirevideo right but that's an opinion and one which very well may be valid, but an opinion which is predicated on certain other ideas and axiomatic beliefs. Now you can argue from those beliefs and then can regress and argue why those beliefs are valid thereby validating your point about abortion. So all that's ok but you see your already debating your position, which obviously you think is right (why else would be taking that position) but it's a debate non the less. So i dont buy it!
@IsaacFigNewtons It's not "an opinion." It's a claim grounded in the best of contemporary science. The embryo, even at the moment of conception, is human life. I'm basing this on the DNA of the embryo.
@wordonfirevideo Oh no you were missing my point. In the video you were saying (correct me if i'm wrong i wouldn't want to be that) that certain things aren't up for debate. But see what you're doing right there is arguing your position. so what i don't buy is that anything is actually beyond contention. And anyway if you really thought that was true wouldn't you just say "abortion's wrong cause it is" but no your justifying your position.
@onpahanvaan You were quite right to put "kills" in scare quotes, because you and everyone else know that amputation is not a matter of killing, that is to say, the taking of a human life.
@wordonfirevideo "You were quite right to put "kills" in scare quotes, because you and everyone else know that amputation is not a matter of killing, that is to say, the taking of a human life."
@DandAinTac " Morality absolutely MUST be discussed and YES, debated! Especially in a democratic society."
that is my point -- sorry should have been more clear.
I fully agree... morality has to be debated and discussed.. otherwise we end up with something like Shira Law -- ( ie my holy book says we need to stone gays -- end of discussion)
I think I was commenting on someone else who said one we work out something is objective we stop debating it
@badpanda84 Is slavery up for debate? How about the immorality of child sex abuse? Rape? The Congress should discuss whether that's good or bad? That all people are the subject of basic human rights? What if a political party formed itself around the conviction that only some people have rights? Should their position be a matter of debate?
Fr Barron makes an interesting point that Obama struggles with the issue of abortion, in light of the moral absolutism of the slavery issue of those who opposed it. But would Barron have abortion be illegal? He doesn't say. I don't think we can fault Obama on the abortion issue. It is one that most people have mixed feelings about. Most people don't want abortion as birth control, but should the government be the moral judge of such a difficult issue?
Fr, check out mikechurch. com "The Mike Church Show' he's a fellow Catholic & really the best talk show out there to listen to on true liberty. Fellow Catholic political speakers like Tom Woods are big fans of his & on his show regularly. You'll enjoy
That some of the moral codes are not up for discussion I agree on, however we need to define life. Most Christians says that life starts at conception, while atheists like me is of the opinion that a human embryo is barely different from a dog one. But isn't free will one of gods favorites? You are free to kill but then take the punishment later. Let it be the same with abortion. Let the woman choose, and if she believe in god, maybe she will decide not to. But don't force people.
@Axcalzia Science says a human life starts at conception. It has stated this for a very long time, way before Roe vs. Wade. Both religion and science agree on this. Philosophy also agrees on this. There is no where else to go but self-indulgence of a bad choice.
@Derrickoify The time limit on legal abortion is considered from the time when the child is able to survive outside the womb. It is carefully chosen with scientific methods. If a woman gets miscarriage in Utah, she can be sentenced for murder, do we want that kind of laws?Just because an absolutistic point of view regarding what is considered a living person? It is a very tricky question, I agree on that, but I still believe that the free choice of the mother is to be considered in first place.
@Derrickoify Now the question becomes, why do we value life in the first place. Do we really need more unwanted babies? Should you have to give birth if you were raped? I just don't get why people value life over freedom of choice. Of course abortion shouldn't be performed without consideration, but is life really "all that"? And at conception you don't have a brain, nerv endings etc... how can you call that a life as opposed to "a blob of goo"?
Obama is just an empty suit and his PR book was, of course, ghost-written. Imagining that Obama is "conflicted" over abortion is incredibly naive.
Slavery itself was never a moral wrong, but stealing wages from people to give ex-slaves welfare checks to buy their votes, that is morally wrong.
US Democracy doesn't work any more because the franchise was given away to groups that are incapable of self government (women, blacks) or are loyal to a foreign state (Catholics).
The thing is that Obama's account of deliberation stems from the American pragmatic tradition and the political philosophy of deliberative democracy, in which the Aristotelian distinction--implied by your reasoning--between speculation (on ends) and deliberation (on means) doesn't hold. Both means and ends are discovered once and again in the democratic process.
As a nominal Catholic myself, I'm glad to see a priest as philosophically acute as you. I wonder if I could meet one as you where ilive
"As a nominal Catholic myself, I'm glad to see a priest as philosophically acute as you. I wonder if I could meet one as you where ilive"
-Majority of the priests and religious are smart and with deeper thought about life's lesson. It won't be hard to find one near your place. No matter how the modern media persecute them, their radiance will continue to light and guide us to the right path.
"As a nominal Catholic myself, I'm glad to see a priest as philosophically acute as you. I wonder if I could meet one as you where ilive"
-Majority of the priests and religious are smart and with deeper thought about life's lesson. It won't be hard to find one near your place. No matter how the modern media persecute them, their radiance will continue to light and guide us to the right path.
@Pdrum2 democracy has principle as long as principle is within the people who debate. principle is relative to every individual; each would argue their own moral ends. it could be argued that the "final end" in our society is to preserve innocent life, but that too is relative to only our modern society. that's not a universal principle.
A democracy functions best when there's "no ambiguity about the essential moral structure of a society"--really? So who gets to decide what those "moral absolutes" consist of if there is to be no debate? Barron uses the examples of Tubman, Garrison et al, but make no mistake--slavery was a HUGE issue for debate, and therefore moral ambiguity. At one time, slavery was the perfect moral good--a moral absolute. A true democracy MUST have on-going debate and therefore ambiguity on moral issues.
@DandAinTac Okay, if you really believe that, then you must be open to a lively political debate concerning the rectitude of slavery. You must be willing to tolerate a political party that advocates the return of slavery. Also, you must be willing to allow the KKK into the political conversation, even as they call for a return to Jim Crow laws. You must be willing to accept a political candidate who says that man/boy love is a legitimate option. You've opened the door to moral chaos.
@wordonfirevideo Nonsense. We've shown we are capable of coming together and agreeing on things that are wrong--things that hurt all of us in the long term. At one time, when the Bible was written, slavery was practiced and in the Bible, and God certainly did not outlaw it. Yet in spite of the apparent condoning of slavery in the Bible, we were able to come together to change our view, and realize that slavery was wrong. Our morality evolved and changed, and "moral chaos" did not ensue.
@DandAinTac In a word, you're agreeing with me! You agree that there are certain basic moral assumptions that are not, themselves, a matter for further debate. We came to recognize the objectivity of irreducible moral truths.
@wordonfirevideo That's a neat trick. I say morals change and evolve over time, and you tell me I'm agreeing with you that they are "objective" and not "a matter for further debate." Morality is in no way "objective". It is fundamentally subjective. Morality is a social construct. There's nothing wrong with that. Culture is also socially constructed. It is and will be debated and discussed, such as we are doing here. But it is not thrust upon us from outside ourselves.
@DandAinTac You're confusing, I'm afraid, the objective and the subjective. It might take us a while to recognize certain values as truly objective, but once we recognize them, we don't hold them as open for further debate. If you hold that "morality is in no way objective," you've just opened the door to someone saying that slavery, segregation, Nazism, and child abuse are valid political options.
@wordonfirevideo This will take more than one post. I'm not trying to be contrary just to be obnoxious, but actually, YOU are confusing objective and subjective. In our society, we've come to think of "objective" as "real" and "subjective" as "not real". I'm referring to these terms in more of an epistemological sense. "Morality" is an abstract concept. It is not an object. If it were, it could be measured and sensed, or at least demonstrated in a lab. Instead, it is an idea, and subjective.
@wordonfirevideo So therefore, "morality" is what it is--it is a subjective idea. That doesn't mean that it's bad, or invalid, or irrational--just that it is not an "object" and therefore not "objective". We cannot measure touch it, see it, or otherwise sense it or measure it with scientific instruments. So therefore, please do not accuse me of opening "the door to someone saying that slavery, segregation, Nazism, and child abuse." People will say and do these things, regardless of whether...
@wordonfirevideo ...morality is objective or subjective. Nothing's going to change because of what we call it. Now as far as debating morality. If we do not debate what is moral--how do we ever know what is? Do we just accept someone's final word on it? Even that is never crystal clear. Take murder. Seems clear cut. Okay, what about self defense? What about the death penalty? What about war? What constitutes murder? These things can certainly be debated--and that's just it. They must be...
@wordonfirevideo ...debated if we are to have a free and democratic society. We must be able to talk about it freely if we are to come to an understanding of what is and is not moral, and develop a consensus or at least a majority. And we WILL talk about and debate about what is and is not moral, as long as we are free, whether you like it or not, because we are social creatures and this is how we function.
@wordonfirevideo "you've just opened the door to someone saying that slavery, segregation, Nazism, and child abuse are valid political options."
1.
But how do you know they are not going to be valid political options in the future?
Sure there can be wide consensus in certain time and place and especially on exact potical questions
like slavery or child abuse, but you can hardly call them core values. They have everything to do with fundamental values like the freedom and (continues)
@wordonfirevideo The point is that if it was up to the relgion we would still be stoning people ( and in some countires they still do).. The bible/koran ( or whatever holy book) says we need to stone gays and that is that.
Morals evolve and have been debated and argued -- sure some idiots ( eg the KKK) can argue that we should reintroduce slavery but they "lost" that debate
@wordonfirevideo Moral has to be subjective -- claiming something to be objective is meanlingless without proof -- otherwise I could claim anything to be objective..
You can prove morals ( ie prove to me that murder is wrong) and you can't measure morals and values..
Therefore it is meanlingless to say morals are objective --
You say that morality is subjective. If so, then so is that statement! You cut the branch you're sitting on. That is to say, your truth claim is self-refuting. Even a moral subjectivist like yourself expects objectivism from the objectivist. Also, you say that morality is a social construct. No. Morailty is discovered because it exists independent of human thought. That is to say, it is objective.
@badpanda84 But I reiterate my point: when you say that morailty is subjective, you are making an appeal to objective truth, are you not? If morailty is subjective, then so is your claim that morality is subjective.
@MrJohnnywonny " If morailty is subjective, then so is your claim that morality is subjective."
that a bit like the joke " Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it"
but my claim that morality is subjective isnt a moral claim.. If I said that it was immoral that people claim that moral are subjective that would be diffrenet
@badpanda84 ""If morailty is subjective, then so is your claim morality is subjective." that a bit like the joke"
--Actually, JMrohnnywonny has a strong point. In the absence of a reason holding up under analysis for why you think normative claims are true relative to culture and why your meta-ethical thesis of moral relativism escapes this charge, your distinction is an instance of special pleading. Why stop there? That they are different kinds of statements is not a....[next]
When you say, "It is clear that moral values are subjective", then by your logic that statement is only true for you, right? Further, your example doesn't entail that moral values are subjective. How moral values are applied (what you mean, I think, when you say 'different morals'), however, is a different matter altogether. Even though people may not practice what they preach (i.e. hypocrisy), no society believes that honesty is better than dishonesty, for example.
@badpanda84 "To claim to have the truth without suffienent evidence or proof is meaningless."
--But where is your evidence or proof of this very claim? Since you cannot verify it, it is therefore meaningless by its own lights. Your logical positivism is self-defeating.
@badpanda84 ...[cont] if consensus is any guide to the credibility of a methodology or to the truth status of its claims, then science has a very poor track record since ALL past scientific theories have been abandoned as false. See "Superseded Scientific Theories" in wiki for an exhaustive list.
@MrJohnnywonny "You say that morality is subjective. If so, then so is that statement"
No I said morailty is subjecitve. That statement isn't a moral statement. If I say it wrong that moraily is subjective -- or that people who thing morality is subjecitve are evil then yes that would be subjective
"Morailty is discovered because it exists independent of human thought"
LOL you have to be kidding.. explain shira law then
@badpanda84 It need not be a moral statement. Answer me this: when you say "Morality is subjective" do you believe this statement to be true - not just true for you, but objectively true?
@MrJohnnywonny Of course morailty is subjective.. everything is subjective unless you can provided soild proof. Otherwise all you have in an opinion.
For something to be objective the need to be mesuareble evidence.
Of course everyone is going to claim there morals are objective. but if 2 people with opposing views both claim to have the objective truth who is correct
@badpanda84 "everything is subjective unless you can provided soild proof. "
--This is clearly false. Some people once believed the earth was flat three-layer cake and some believed the earth was a sphere. Both sides had decent justification for their beliefs, with no die-hard proof to settle the matter. But just because no one had any "solid proof" one way or another, it doesn't follow that there was no objective fact of the matter concerning the actual shape of the earth!
@badpanda84 If morality were strictly subjective, then moral judgments would be exactly like judgments of personal taste. There would be no question of them being right or wrong. Conflicting opinions about rape, for example, would be no more right or wrong than conflicting opinions about pizzas vs. hamburgers, because the truth or correctness would simply depend upon the attitude, opinion, or belief of an individual subject or person.
@MrJohnnywonny "then moral judgments would be exactly like judgments of personal taste. "
Which they are. Like I said prove to me objectively that rape is wrong in all circumstances. however the law is another story.. the law isnt based on morals.. for instance adulatry may be immoral but is still legal ( in many countries)
@badpanda84 ""moral judgments like judgments of taste"
"Which they are""
--But they aren't. Most people have no difficulty making the distinction (even if they can't always articulate in what that distinction consists) between their subjective personal taste in ice-cream and a fundamental objectively true moral Law like "Torturing innocent people for fun is morally wrong."
Your attempt to fit ALL evaluative judgments into non-cognitive expressions of personal taste is hopelessly reductive.
@badpanda84 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you presuppose that values are relative to cultures. You see, we first have to distinguish value-opinions (which are culturally relative) from values (which are not). Granted, different cultures have different opinions of what's right.Nazi Germany thought genocide was right. Cannibals think eating humans is right. But they're wrong about what's right! Thinking something is so doesn't make it so. Opinions are relative to cultures, but truth isn't.
@MrJohnnywonny "Opinions are relative to cultures, but truth isn't."
All morals are relative to cultures... but truth isn't relavie to culture -- I agree but like I said claim to to have the truth without suffienent evidence or proof is meaningless.
How can you tell the diffreent between the truth and someone claiming to have the truth
@badpanda84 "How can you tell the diffreent between the truth and someone claiming to have the truth"
--By means of a moral principle coupled together with reasoned argumentation. Moral skepticism is unjustified if we can advance our moral understanding of why we take some things to be good without qualification and why some actions are right or wrong actions. That's what normative ethics DOES. Just because some things cannot be settled beyond controversy, doesn't mean they are "subjective."
@badpanda84 Here is a list of possible candidates for a minimally basic objectively true moral set of principles most likely common to most cultures, giving strong evidence for objective morality:
(1)Do not kill innocent people,
(2)Do not cause unnecessary pain and suffering,
(3)Do not cheat or steal,
(4)Keep your promises and honor your contracts,
(5)Do justice, treating equals equally and unequals unequally
(6)Tell the truth,
(7)Help other people, at least when the cost is minimal to oneself.
@badpanda84 "Muslim think women wearing bikininis is wrong, but it is acceptable in West"
--Every realist knows you are confusing an objective moral value w/ the particular application & form it takes in different cultures. All (or most) cultures value some form of modesty because it protects the intimate center of the person out of respect. The same value may look different, but that doesn't mean they disagree on the value of modesty itself--much less does it follow modesty is "subjective."
@badpanda84 After heavy consideration, the best explanation for the phenomenon of disagreement is, NOT that morality is "subjective, but that human beings are highly fallible creatures. Human error is due to weakness of will, laziness, concupiscence, poor judgment, poor upbringing/education. We have morals precisely for this reason--to guide others to the Highest Good. And we can draw out these moral truths common to cultures in spite of their apparent "differences"--if we only apply ourselves.
@badpanda84 "Yes morals which vary according to culture and upbringing. -- that makes it subjective."
--No it doesn't. This is invalid. The first is merely a descriptive thesis that people in different cultures and upbringing will sometimes have different moral beliefs. That latter is the meta-ethical view that says truth-value of moral claims depend on the person or culture making them. The latter does not follow from the former.
116. And (remember) when God will say (on the Day of Resurrection): "O 'Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary)! Did you say unto men: 'Worship me and my mother as two gods besides God?' " He will say: "Glory be to You! It was not for me to say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, You would surely have known it. You know what is in my inner-self though I do not know what is in Yours, truly, You, only You, are the All-Knower of all that is hidden and unseen.(Al:ma'idah) holy Quran
DJibby1 3 hours ago
Book's title should be:"Lack of Original Thinking:Another Knee-Jerk Liberal Weighs In". Why does anyone think this is a "good" book?
alamedavigilante 1 day ago
or the many scnadals under his watch like the Valerie Plame scandal, the Alberto Gonzales Scandal, and others? I agree completely with Father Barron that Abortion is morally repugnant. But a lot of people act like demonizing Obama and voting Republican is the solution, when some of their moral positions are absolutely repugnant in many cases as well...........
jamaicanification 2 weeks ago
To the people saying Obama is 'wicked', is he more wicked than George Bush who launched an illegal, pre-emptive war in Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 1 million people in terms of total combatant and civilian Casualities on both sides? A war that Pope John Paul ii himself condemned very harshly as an unjust war? Or the fact that bush sanctioned torture in Gitmo, which went against the constitution of the United States?(continued)
jamaicanification 2 weeks ago
Dear Father,
God bless you, now, I dont think Obama is a good politician he is killing the Republic and reaches too far into peoples freedoms. I am able to be a free thinking Catholic because of the Constitution. First the Bible then the Consititution.
Warmest Regards,
Dr Peter Martin
Drpetya1965 3 weeks ago
I don't mean this sarcastically but it would be nice if Jesus Christ was here to help us with these issues.
RESIDENTRYAN 3 weeks ago
Natural Law has a way of showing its reality. Powerful stuff. Funny how, as of today, the HHS contraception mandate clearly shows one of the effects of Natural Law: Obama trying to deny and escape from his deep conscience.
rhlogic 1 month ago
@rhlogic Obama has been corrupted by Washington. He is not the same man I voted for. He must know deep down inside that the anti-abortion movement is today's analogue for the anti-slavery movement.
Nonamearisto 1 week ago
@Nonamearisto I agree, and hopefully this knowledge in him comes up to the surface before is too late for him and for America. That is my prayer intention.
rhlogic 1 week ago
If Obama wrote this book, why does he rely so heavily on a teleprompter?
acrovader 1 month ago
Bill Ayers wrote the book.
acrovader 1 month ago
Father, you seem very smart but you are convinced Obama didn't have a ghostwriter? Sorry but I don't think so. Also your apparent respect for this man causes me to tune out everything else you may say. God bless.
samspinchat 1 month ago
@samspinchat Well, what's your evidence for the claim that he had a ghost-writer? And friend, I respect certain gifts that the President has. Take a look at my most recent video for a sharp critique of him and his policies.
wordonfirevideo 1 month ago
@wordonfirevideo Father, google "Audacity of Hope ghostwriter". Many people believe he had a ghostwriter, best guess is his speechwriter Jon Favreau (not the actor of the same name). That book was part of the process of getting Obama elected and I really don't think he has the skills to write a book, just like he can't give a speech without his teleprompter.
samspinchat 1 month ago
@samspinchat
Your not-so-subtle jabs are retarded. I guarantee you, he could write a better book than you could in his sleep...even if you spent your entire life writing it.
FrizzKid05 3 weeks ago
@samspinchat I hope you're a troll :) If not, that comment makes you a great christian.
Pianoman2489 1 month ago
Please, Fr. Barron, do not compare this wicked man Obama to President Lincoln, not even in the capacity of writing! Obama is a disgrace to this country. He supports the murder of unborn children, he despises this country and all it stands for and he continues to deliberately provoke class/race warfare.
He is an evil man who MUST be defeated in the upcoming election.
Yesica1993 1 month ago
@Yesica1993
My characterization of you...one word, two syllables "MO-RON!"
You're so evil that Satan wouldn't touch you...so evil that your name can't even be spelled right. "Yesica....really?"
Watch your mouth, fool
FrizzKid05 3 weeks ago
@FrizzKid05 Watch my mouth or what? Is that a threat? I will most happily report you to YouTube.
Childish name calling and hatred, that's all you have to offer? No refuting of the points I made?
Yesica1993 3 weeks ago
@Yesica1993
How is "WATCH YOUR MOUTH" a threat?? Did I say "Watch your mouth or I'll cut you"? NO. Good try. You fail.
Hypocrite. You call me childish for name-calling, but you called Obama an "Evil Man." Who's the child now?
FrizzKid05 3 weeks ago
This should be played on TV as a political ad. Everyone needs to see this before they vote.
thecommentmonster 2 months ago
Father? Bill Ayrs had written that book.
BeantownJim 2 months ago
John Brown!!??!! He and his murderous sons were all killers.
SunsetSix 2 months ago
Awesome!
kcatelodiaz 3 months ago
Father Barron, this was excellent! Now, can we spell out these core, non-negotiable values? It seems we agree that we have the right to our own lives. Do we agree that our lives are not owned by the government and subject to its capricious laws? There is a far more greater moral value here. We (or God) owns our lives and what we do with these lives. What is slavery except the taking of our labor?
runr100 3 months ago
Whore More Years, Whore More Years...
Archangel866 3 months ago
Great argument, it is because of people like this that, should you ever become terminally ill, you will suffer needlessly for months as your body slowly shuts down and you writhe in agony. Furthermore, should your child ever be born with anencephaly, you will have to keep it alive even though it is born deaf, unconscious, blind, and without feeling.
TheMischaReviews 3 months ago
@TheMischaReviews A life of suffering is better than no life at all. I'm sure Fr Barron would agree with me to embrace such an end if God wills. By the way, life is full of suffering from the day we are born. You either embrace it with the good or be bitter all your life. Being terminally ill or having a child with special needs is not something WE fear. We'll thank God for every healthy child and year of life, but we won't live it in the fear of selfishness.
tsapenathpaneah 2 months ago
@tsapenathpaneah If you say a life of suffering is better than no life at all just reveals to me that you have led a charmed life.
TheMischaReviews 2 months ago
@TheMischaReviews Well, your revelation would be way wrong. Actually, it is because of having been through suffering that I know this. To the contrary, it is those with a charmed life that don't know how to deal with things that don't go their way. The happiest people on earth are the third world poor and the most miserable are the worlds elite (including most americans) who never know hunger or thirst or want.
tsapenathpaneah 2 months ago
@tsapenathpaneah Obviously you have never been tied up in a room and continually tortured for days on end by people you trust and loved.
TheMischaReviews 2 months ago
@TheMischaReviews OK, I see; you have the suffering market cornered, Huh? where is that darned block button.. :)
tsapenathpaneah 2 months ago
BRAVO FR. BARRON, i SURE WISH MR. OBAMA WOULD SEE THIS VIDEO, WHY NOT PUT ON TV. GOD BLESS YOU FR. BARRON. ps. I LOVE YOUR SERIES ON EWTN,
OBAMA MUST GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ave Maria + + +
GalwayRose1 3 months ago
Question, when Jesus says, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Does neighbor apply to a child? A new born baby? A son? A daughter? An unborn fetus? Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. How can this command to love, given by Jesus himself be fulfilled, if our neighborhood has one less neighbor in it through abortion? Right to choose and abortion or right to live in love, which is greater? What did Jesus say?
LoneMonk1 3 months ago
@CentristFiasco I think that Obama's true view is "pro choice" in the sense of self-determination but I doubt that he could possibly support partial birth abortion which is essentially have the kid and kill it. I've lived in the northeast and southeast of America. The republicans aren't just rooted in the deep south. They've always been the party of wealth, elitisim and segregation. Obama's presidency seems to have spiralled out of control. It's a poisoned chalice.
grailng 4 months ago
very well articulated.
imbonnie 4 months ago
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No one has the right to kill...
BrightLight57 4 months ago
I was pro choice based on the belief that most abortions were the last resort for women with little or no financial means or those who had been victims of sexual assault. Over time, I've come believe that in a global society where most things appear to be commodities, children themselves have become disposable if inconvenient. Partial birth abortions are shocking. With too much to lose, the Democratic party will never do a U-turn on this issue. We need to acknowledge what abortion is.
grailng 5 months ago 12
@grailng Mother Teresa was the one who transformed my thinking towards being pro-life.
MrSurfingdreamer 2 months ago
I hope Obama sees this video
GregariousGorilla 5 months ago 9
Abortion is a sick scourge that is ruining our country. It all started with the "pill". Since the blessing of saving yourself for marriage was removed by the pill, people became their own gods, first, by deciding for themselves what is "right" and "wrong" (fornication, adultery etc) and then deciding who should live or die amongst their children. (NO-ONE has that "right") If the most innocent of our children have no rights, who are they going to say its "OK" to kill next? You? Me? It has to stop
bheadh 5 months ago
Like pope JP II said: democracy without moral values (Christian values that is) democracy becomes totalitarism.
metal87power 6 months ago
Refutation of subjectivism:
(1) There are moral propositions
(2)Propositions are either true or false, but not both.
(3) Not all moral propositions are false; some are true
(4)If some moral propositions are true, then some of them correspond to reality (correspondence theory of truth)
(5)Therefore, some moral propositions correspond to reality
W/o a reason for thinking the17 axioms below are false, their truth is the default since they are self-evident to rational persons
grunderlyme 6 months ago
"Extreme purposeless pain and suffering is a bad thing. That's an objective fact. You disagree? Then allow someone to skin you alive, and get back to me proving torture is actually good thing"
That is why it subjective.
Duh because obviously if you were being skinned alive you would claim that it was a bad thing.. yet the person torturing you might disagree..
Its just a matter of perspective.
badpanda84 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
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@badpanda84 @badpanda84 ""Extreme purposeless pain and suffering is a bad thing. That's an objective fact. You disagree? Then allow someone to skin you alive, and get back to me proving torture is actually good thing"
--That is why it subjective."
--No that is not "why" it is subjective. This is both false and invalid. Try again.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "Duh because obviously if you were being skinned alive you would claim that it was a bad thing.. "
--Most likely because it IS, in fact, a bad thing.
"yet the person torturing you might disagree.."
--As if psychopaths are really credible people on what is right and wrong? You're too fast for us!
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme
""The default position is that they are true,"
If that is the case they we would belive that vampire, fairies , goblins , the flying spagetti monster.. etc exist.
Because we can't prove that they do not exist
badpanda84 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
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@badpanda84
"that is why you in a court you are innoncent until proven guilty."
--That's only because you don't have enough empirical evidence to establish anything either way, so you suspend judgment. But if you want to argue that "2+2=4" and "torture is bad" are false in a court of law just because we don't have evidence for these things, BE MY GUEST!
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme " But if you want to argue that "2+2=4" and "torture is bad" are false in a court of law just because we don't have evidence for these things, BE MY GUEST! "
But we dont have enough evidence that torture is bad.
Just saying " torture is bad becuase to me its self-evidenet is never going to hold up in court.
Just like saying its self-evident to me he commited murder isn't going to hold up in court
badpanda84 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "But we dont have enough evidence that torture is bad."
--Neither do we have enough evidence the Law of Gravity works in all times and places, past, present, and future. Nor do we have evidence 2+2=4 is true. It is an axiom not even demonstrable in mathematics. No one can prove it. So the Law of Gravity is false? So 2+2=4 is false? You're too fast for us!
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "Just like saying its self-evident to me he commited murder isn't going to hold up in cour"
--Right, because it is an EMPIRICAL claim requiring EMPIRICAL evidence. "2+2=4" is NOT an empirical claim, nor is "torturing innocent persons is wrong" an empirical claim. Nor is the logical Law of Non-contradiction an empiral claim. They are all self-evident a priori AXIOMS. There are other ways of knowing things than gathering evidence for them, genius.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme "There are other ways of knowing things than gathering evidence for them, genius. "
Right but when you say "knowing" are you talking about knowing like how chirstain "know" the bible is true and how Muslims "know" that there are 72 virgins in heaven.
badpanda84 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "" torture is bad" is never going to hold up in court."
--Wanna make a bet?
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 Almost every peer-reviwed PhD academic philosopher, theist and atheist, alike can defend Moral Knowledge. You need a crash-course on Moral Epistemology. Here is a good place to start proving how upsettingly wrong you are:
home (.) sprynet.com/~owl1/5.htm
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 Here's a proof of your egregious error from Michael Heumer, a well-known PhD philosopher published widely in peer-reviewed journals. Contrary to what you stipulate over and over again without a valid argument, we DO have moral knowledge
home (.) sprynet.com/~owl1/5.htm
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 Oh, and here's a kid on youtube that tears down your "Veto". He's got it right:
/watch?v=dz8frsZHSe4
He is just repeating arguments already widely made by real Academic Philosophers. But this should be easy enough for you to understand. You need to become much more familiar with the actual landscape in Moral Epistemology before trying to attack it. So far, your arguments bottom out in special pleading, self-defeating double-standards, and invalid non-sequiturs.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme
"An act may thus be good for one person but bad for another, or good in one cultural setting but bad in another, but cannot be either good or bad full stop."
that is also a good definiion of moral relvatism
So stop askign stupid questions like "Where are your proofs that "2+2=4" and "torturing persons is wrong" are false, or not knwon to be true?"
Because torturing people can be either good or bad depending -- its not a matter of being alway true or alway false
badpanda84 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme But we are talking moral and ethics here -- Maths is diffrenet.
Moral relviatism dosen't say anything about maths.. it say only about moral issuses.
badpanda84 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "moral and ethics -- Maths is diffrenet."
--But now you are special pleading. Why is math different? Like moral axioms like "happiness is better than misery" cannot be proven just like mathematical axioms like "2+2=4." They are self-evident truths from which further propositions are logically deduced. A proposition is self-evident if and only if there is no way to rationally call it into question. Not once have you given me ANY reason for thinking the above axioms can be false.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme "But now you are special pleading. Why is math different"
because for a start the term proof in mathmaticis has a specific meaning. Look up mathmatical proof on wiki--
badpanda84 7 months ago
@badpanda84 ""But now you are special pleading. Why is math different"--because for a start the term proof in mathmaticis has a specific meaning."
--SO DOES ETHICS. Ethics is JUST LIKE mathematics with respect to starting from self-evident propositions and logically deducing conclusions (or theorems). Did you even bother reading those multiple links I sent you from PhD academic peer-reviewed philosophers SHOWING EXACTLY THIS? Ethical conclusions are logically demonstrable, just like math.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
proof in mathmatics and has a specific meaning
In mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration (within the accepted standards of the field) that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proofs are obtained from deductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single exception. An unproven proposition that is believed to be true is known as a conjecture.
badpanda84 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "Proofs in mathematics is a convincing demonstration"
--Ya think? So are ethical proofs. I gave multiple examples below. But ALL proofs, in both mathematics and ethics, follow from assumptions that cannot be proven to be true. Like I keep saying ad infinitum, mathematician Kurt Godel, famous mathematician, proved that self-contained axiomatic systems will always be incomplete because they rest on axioms and definitions (assumptions) which cannot be proven by the system itself.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
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@badpanda84 "Because torturing people can be either good or bad depending -- its not a matter of being alway true or alway false"
--Yes it is. Give me ONE example where torturing innocent persons for fun is actually good thing.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 Want more proof? See section "5.4.1" on the following page by Huemer:
home (.) sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm
in addition to,
home (.) sprynet.com/~owl1/5.htm
For something a little less challenging see,
moralrelativism (.) info/argumentfromdisagreement.html
grunderlyme 7 months ago
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@grunderlyme "moralrelativism (.) info/argumentfromdisagreement.html"
that site proves nothing.. In fact it has alot of good arugments for moral relativism.
So thanks -- you pretty much just supported my point
badpanda84 7 months ago
@grunderlyme the only arguemnt agaist moral relvisism I can see on that site are
"In some cases, it does seem to be right to judge one culture to be morally superior to another, to make cross-cultural comparisons. To make cross-cultural comparisons, though, one needs a cross-cultural standard, which is precisely what moral relativism says there isn’t."
Which I agree -- people like to judge one culture to be morally superior to another -- but that is still there subjeticve opion
badpanda84 7 months ago
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@badpanda84 "If that is the case they we would belive that vampire, fairies , goblins , the flying spagetti monster.."
--Yeah, we shouldn't believe self-evident axioms like "2+2=4" and "Torturing and raping innocent persons is wrong" are true because creatures like fairies and goblins self-evidently exist. You're too fast for us!
grunderlyme 7 months ago
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Its been a great week here in Ireland. Our new priminister finally gave the pope a proper going over re: the lies, cover ups, and ongoing abuses of the catholic church in relation to innocent children. Telling him that the rule of law supercedes canon law. Not being from Ireland, you would never appreciate the control the church had on all levels of government, the police, and everyday people. The church was never questioned and we have a history of destroyed lives because of blind faith!
newfrontier01 7 months ago
moral clarity?
the only moral clarity God accepts is that we are all sinners, our righteousnes is filthy rags, indeed even our righteousnes is sin, and we CANT please God under those terms for moral law is what damns us.
a just society? we cannot even make ourself just individually let alone the society
Strefanasha 8 months ago
Obama's "wisdom" in his book is all very well. But his deeds since elected show that it is all empty hypocrisy, flummery, vacuous gestures.
His broken promises show that he was a deliberate liar. he stills tortures in guantanamo, the patriot act is still in force. he says that America is a great and good nation when its deeds show the absolute contrary.
when the left is as foul as the right then there is no political hope for that country.
he is an empty suit, a shill for wall street
Strefanasha 8 months ago
@Strefanasha , you didnt think that the fraud named Barry Obama was going to keep his promises , did you ? You forgot he also kept military tribunals, too
k3304 8 months ago
Fr. Barron, I'm a new Catholic and relatively recently a pro-lifer. I've also recently learned that most a woman's fertilized eggs don't implant. And sometimes her body will "attack" the fetus as an intruder, causing a miscarriage. If God even loves zygotes, why has he made the human body in such a way that most of them don't even implant, let alone get born? Is heaven mostly populated with people who never grew larger than a few hundred cells?
Mystagogia87 9 months ago 2
Fantastic video, Father.
yankeesuperstar 9 months ago
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Would you support Slavery - if you had just been sold as a slave?
Would you support Segregation - if you had just been told your type is not allowed to sit here?
Would you support Abortion - if you were an unborn baby?
You just answered where you really stand on this issue!
mmmail1969 10 months ago
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mmmail1969 10 months ago
You talk about the church upholding moral absolutes, but what is the church doing to oppose actual injustice and poverty? It opposes condom use in aids ridden africa and abortion, and what do those two things have in common?they dont require any sacrifices for the catholic church to oppose them, whilst fighting real injustice, would eat into the churches coffers. So basically the church can act high and mighty opposing abortion, but i dont see catholics adopting unwanted babies.
chuckstar666 10 months ago
@chuckstar666 Then you're not looking very hard, friend. Every diocese in this country has a program to help women with unwanted pregnancies. And Project Rachel, which counsels and financially supports those who have had abortions, is ubiquitous in the Catholic world.
wordonfirevideo 10 months ago 8
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@wordonfirevideo so basically my questions like this why do you assume that abortion is indisputably immoral?
IsaacFigNewtons 10 months ago
@IsaacFigNewtons Because it's the taking of an innocent human life.
wordonfirevideo 10 months ago 6
@wordonfirevideo right but that's an opinion and one which very well may be valid, but an opinion which is predicated on certain other ideas and axiomatic beliefs. Now you can argue from those beliefs and then can regress and argue why those beliefs are valid thereby validating your point about abortion. So all that's ok but you see your already debating your position, which obviously you think is right (why else would be taking that position) but it's a debate non the less. So i dont buy it!
IsaacFigNewtons 10 months ago
@IsaacFigNewtons It's not "an opinion." It's a claim grounded in the best of contemporary science. The embryo, even at the moment of conception, is human life. I'm basing this on the DNA of the embryo.
wordonfirevideo 10 months ago 5
@wordonfirevideo Oh no you were missing my point. In the video you were saying (correct me if i'm wrong i wouldn't want to be that) that certain things aren't up for debate. But see what you're doing right there is arguing your position. so what i don't buy is that anything is actually beyond contention. And anyway if you really thought that was true wouldn't you just say "abortion's wrong cause it is" but no your justifying your position.
IsaacFigNewtons 10 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Then is amputation wrong too since since it "kills" part of human body with human cells with human DNA?
onpahanvaan 7 months ago
@onpahanvaan You were quite right to put "kills" in scare quotes, because you and everyone else know that amputation is not a matter of killing, that is to say, the taking of a human life.
wordonfirevideo 7 months ago
@wordonfirevideo "You were quite right to put "kills" in scare quotes, because you and everyone else know that amputation is not a matter of killing, that is to say, the taking of a human life."
--Touche.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@wordonfirevideo But don't babies that get aborted get a free pass to heaven ( not sure what he catholic view is no that)
badpanda84 8 months ago
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@wordonfirevideo "Because it's the taking of an innocent human life."
So it is an absolute immorality? It is absolutely immoral to take a child's life?
cierech2 7 months ago
@DandAinTac " Morality absolutely MUST be discussed and YES, debated! Especially in a democratic society."
that is my point -- sorry should have been more clear.
I fully agree... morality has to be debated and discussed.. otherwise we end up with something like Shira Law -- ( ie my holy book says we need to stone gays -- end of discussion)
I think I was commenting on someone else who said one we work out something is objective we stop debating it
badpanda84 10 months ago
@badpanda84 Is slavery up for debate? How about the immorality of child sex abuse? Rape? The Congress should discuss whether that's good or bad? That all people are the subject of basic human rights? What if a political party formed itself around the conviction that only some people have rights? Should their position be a matter of debate?
wordonfirevideo 10 months ago
@wordonfirevideo "Is slavery up for debate?" It had to be up for debate as some point -- otherwise there would still be slavery.
Moral should and have to be debated.. otherwise we end up with a messed up version of Shira Law.
My point is you can't say something is good or bad just because it my holy book say so..( or someone is bad just because it is)
badpanda84 10 months ago
@wordonfirevideo "How about the immorality of child sex abuse? Rape?"
In some cases yes.. for instance the age of consent is subject to debate.. ( and hence Statutory rape).. laws change over time as well..
Moral evolve and change over time. for instace why dont follow the laws in levitcus.. And they will contiune to change --
badpanda84 10 months ago
@wordonfirevideo "That all people are the subject of basic human rights?"
Also the idea of human rights is also a very recent invention ( in the last few centuries)
"What if a political party formed itself around the conviction that only some people have rights?"
You means like how people didnt think women had the right to vote , womens rights are a very recent idea.
badpanda84 10 months ago
Fr Barron makes an interesting point that Obama struggles with the issue of abortion, in light of the moral absolutism of the slavery issue of those who opposed it. But would Barron have abortion be illegal? He doesn't say. I don't think we can fault Obama on the abortion issue. It is one that most people have mixed feelings about. Most people don't want abortion as birth control, but should the government be the moral judge of such a difficult issue?
ivaro3 10 months ago 2
I wonder what you think of Judith Jarvis Thomson's paper "A Defense of Abortion".
elguanteloko 11 months ago
Fr, check out mikechurch. com "The Mike Church Show' he's a fellow Catholic & really the best talk show out there to listen to on true liberty. Fellow Catholic political speakers like Tom Woods are big fans of his & on his show regularly. You'll enjoy
onearmsteve4192 11 months ago
That some of the moral codes are not up for discussion I agree on, however we need to define life. Most Christians says that life starts at conception, while atheists like me is of the opinion that a human embryo is barely different from a dog one. But isn't free will one of gods favorites? You are free to kill but then take the punishment later. Let it be the same with abortion. Let the woman choose, and if she believe in god, maybe she will decide not to. But don't force people.
Axcalzia 1 year ago
@Axcalzia Science says a human life starts at conception. It has stated this for a very long time, way before Roe vs. Wade. Both religion and science agree on this. Philosophy also agrees on this. There is no where else to go but self-indulgence of a bad choice.
Derrickoify 11 months ago
@Derrickoify The time limit on legal abortion is considered from the time when the child is able to survive outside the womb. It is carefully chosen with scientific methods. If a woman gets miscarriage in Utah, she can be sentenced for murder, do we want that kind of laws?Just because an absolutistic point of view regarding what is considered a living person? It is a very tricky question, I agree on that, but I still believe that the free choice of the mother is to be considered in first place.
Axcalzia 11 months ago
@Derrickoify Now the question becomes, why do we value life in the first place. Do we really need more unwanted babies? Should you have to give birth if you were raped? I just don't get why people value life over freedom of choice. Of course abortion shouldn't be performed without consideration, but is life really "all that"? And at conception you don't have a brain, nerv endings etc... how can you call that a life as opposed to "a blob of goo"?
Chaaarge 11 months ago
Obama is just an empty suit and his PR book was, of course, ghost-written. Imagining that Obama is "conflicted" over abortion is incredibly naive.
Slavery itself was never a moral wrong, but stealing wages from people to give ex-slaves welfare checks to buy their votes, that is morally wrong.
US Democracy doesn't work any more because the franchise was given away to groups that are incapable of self government (women, blacks) or are loyal to a foreign state (Catholics).
MQ1611 1 year ago
The thing is that Obama's account of deliberation stems from the American pragmatic tradition and the political philosophy of deliberative democracy, in which the Aristotelian distinction--implied by your reasoning--between speculation (on ends) and deliberation (on means) doesn't hold. Both means and ends are discovered once and again in the democratic process.
As a nominal Catholic myself, I'm glad to see a priest as philosophically acute as you. I wonder if I could meet one as you where ilive
pachoig 1 year ago
@pachoig
"As a nominal Catholic myself, I'm glad to see a priest as philosophically acute as you. I wonder if I could meet one as you where ilive"
-Majority of the priests and religious are smart and with deeper thought about life's lesson. It won't be hard to find one near your place. No matter how the modern media persecute them, their radiance will continue to light and guide us to the right path.
279cute 11 months ago
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@pachoig @pachoig
"As a nominal Catholic myself, I'm glad to see a priest as philosophically acute as you. I wonder if I could meet one as you where ilive"
-Majority of the priests and religious are smart and with deeper thought about life's lesson. It won't be hard to find one near your place. No matter how the modern media persecute them, their radiance will continue to light and guide us to the right path.
279cute 11 months ago
@Pdrum2 democracy has principle as long as principle is within the people who debate. principle is relative to every individual; each would argue their own moral ends. it could be argued that the "final end" in our society is to preserve innocent life, but that too is relative to only our modern society. that's not a universal principle.
katinkers 1 year ago
"Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but the right to do what we ought"
- John Paul II
Jim1905 1 year ago
As I would knew that dear priest will be too optimistic and full of hope for tragically and hopeless case of "moral of politics".
Politics will never be moral, clean or good. Government itself is pure evil established against human person.
metal87power 1 year ago
A democracy functions best when there's "no ambiguity about the essential moral structure of a society"--really? So who gets to decide what those "moral absolutes" consist of if there is to be no debate? Barron uses the examples of Tubman, Garrison et al, but make no mistake--slavery was a HUGE issue for debate, and therefore moral ambiguity. At one time, slavery was the perfect moral good--a moral absolute. A true democracy MUST have on-going debate and therefore ambiguity on moral issues.
DandAinTac 1 year ago 2
@DandAinTac Okay, if you really believe that, then you must be open to a lively political debate concerning the rectitude of slavery. You must be willing to tolerate a political party that advocates the return of slavery. Also, you must be willing to allow the KKK into the political conversation, even as they call for a return to Jim Crow laws. You must be willing to accept a political candidate who says that man/boy love is a legitimate option. You've opened the door to moral chaos.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Nonsense. We've shown we are capable of coming together and agreeing on things that are wrong--things that hurt all of us in the long term. At one time, when the Bible was written, slavery was practiced and in the Bible, and God certainly did not outlaw it. Yet in spite of the apparent condoning of slavery in the Bible, we were able to come together to change our view, and realize that slavery was wrong. Our morality evolved and changed, and "moral chaos" did not ensue.
DandAinTac 1 year ago
@DandAinTac In a word, you're agreeing with me! You agree that there are certain basic moral assumptions that are not, themselves, a matter for further debate. We came to recognize the objectivity of irreducible moral truths.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo That's a neat trick. I say morals change and evolve over time, and you tell me I'm agreeing with you that they are "objective" and not "a matter for further debate." Morality is in no way "objective". It is fundamentally subjective. Morality is a social construct. There's nothing wrong with that. Culture is also socially constructed. It is and will be debated and discussed, such as we are doing here. But it is not thrust upon us from outside ourselves.
DandAinTac 1 year ago
@DandAinTac You're confusing, I'm afraid, the objective and the subjective. It might take us a while to recognize certain values as truly objective, but once we recognize them, we don't hold them as open for further debate. If you hold that "morality is in no way objective," you've just opened the door to someone saying that slavery, segregation, Nazism, and child abuse are valid political options.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago 5
@wordonfirevideo This will take more than one post. I'm not trying to be contrary just to be obnoxious, but actually, YOU are confusing objective and subjective. In our society, we've come to think of "objective" as "real" and "subjective" as "not real". I'm referring to these terms in more of an epistemological sense. "Morality" is an abstract concept. It is not an object. If it were, it could be measured and sensed, or at least demonstrated in a lab. Instead, it is an idea, and subjective.
DandAinTac 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo So therefore, "morality" is what it is--it is a subjective idea. That doesn't mean that it's bad, or invalid, or irrational--just that it is not an "object" and therefore not "objective". We cannot measure touch it, see it, or otherwise sense it or measure it with scientific instruments. So therefore, please do not accuse me of opening "the door to someone saying that slavery, segregation, Nazism, and child abuse." People will say and do these things, regardless of whether...
DandAinTac 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo ...morality is objective or subjective. Nothing's going to change because of what we call it. Now as far as debating morality. If we do not debate what is moral--how do we ever know what is? Do we just accept someone's final word on it? Even that is never crystal clear. Take murder. Seems clear cut. Okay, what about self defense? What about the death penalty? What about war? What constitutes murder? These things can certainly be debated--and that's just it. They must be...
DandAinTac 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo ...debated if we are to have a free and democratic society. We must be able to talk about it freely if we are to come to an understanding of what is and is not moral, and develop a consensus or at least a majority. And we WILL talk about and debate about what is and is not moral, as long as we are free, whether you like it or not, because we are social creatures and this is how we function.
DandAinTac 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo "you've just opened the door to someone saying that slavery, segregation, Nazism, and child abuse are valid political options."
1.
But how do you know they are not going to be valid political options in the future?
Sure there can be wide consensus in certain time and place and especially on exact potical questions
like slavery or child abuse, but you can hardly call them core values. They have everything to do with fundamental values like the freedom and (continues)
onpahanvaan 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo
2.
(continues) rights of individual, but those values are going to change over time and depending on what political questions they are being applied to.
onpahanvaan 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo The point is that if it was up to the relgion we would still be stoning people ( and in some countires they still do).. The bible/koran ( or whatever holy book) says we need to stone gays and that is that.
Morals evolve and have been debated and argued -- sure some idiots ( eg the KKK) can argue that we should reintroduce slavery but they "lost" that debate
badpanda84 11 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Moral has to be subjective -- claiming something to be objective is meanlingless without proof -- otherwise I could claim anything to be objective..
You can prove morals ( ie prove to me that murder is wrong) and you can't measure morals and values..
Therefore it is meanlingless to say morals are objective --
badpanda84 10 months ago
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MrJohnnywonny 11 months ago
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MrJohnnywonny 11 months ago
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MrJohnnywonny 11 months ago
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You say that morality is subjective. If so, then so is that statement! You cut the branch you're sitting on. That is to say, your truth claim is self-refuting. Even a moral subjectivist like yourself expects objectivism from the objectivist. Also, you say that morality is a social construct. No. Morailty is discovered because it exists independent of human thought. That is to say, it is objective.
MrJohnnywonny 11 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny "You say that morality is subjective. If so, then so is that statement"
Of course moraility is subjective- - to claim something to be objecitve without proof is meaningless.. and you can prove or measure moral vaules..
Prove to me murder is wrong or tell me how much more evil hilter was that stalin..
\
badpanda84 10 months ago
@badpanda84 But I reiterate my point: when you say that morailty is subjective, you are making an appeal to objective truth, are you not? If morailty is subjective, then so is your claim that morality is subjective.
MrJohnnywonny 9 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny " If morailty is subjective, then so is your claim that morality is subjective."
that a bit like the joke " Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it"
but my claim that morality is subjective isnt a moral claim.. If I said that it was immoral that people claim that moral are subjective that would be diffrenet
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 ""If morailty is subjective, then so is your claim morality is subjective." that a bit like the joke"
--Actually, JMrohnnywonny has a strong point. In the absence of a reason holding up under analysis for why you think normative claims are true relative to culture and why your meta-ethical thesis of moral relativism escapes this charge, your distinction is an instance of special pleading. Why stop there? That they are different kinds of statements is not a....[next]
grunderlyme 7 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny Regardless its is clear that moral are subjective..
otherwise why do you thing all relgions have diffrenet morals.
Why is it not acceptable ( or moral ) to have 4 wives here.. yet if you grew up in a Muslim country that would be perfectly acceptable
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84
When you say, "It is clear that moral values are subjective", then by your logic that statement is only true for you, right? Further, your example doesn't entail that moral values are subjective. How moral values are applied (what you mean, I think, when you say 'different morals'), however, is a different matter altogether. Even though people may not practice what they preach (i.e. hypocrisy), no society believes that honesty is better than dishonesty, for example.
MrJohnnywonny 8 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny OK but how can you determine which morals are objective and subjective..
you can't -- for something to be objective you need to be able to prove or measure it.
You can't measure morals in anyway
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 "To claim to have the truth without suffienent evidence or proof is meaningless."
--But where is your evidence or proof of this very claim? Since you cannot verify it, it is therefore meaningless by its own lights. Your logical positivism is self-defeating.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 ...[cont] if consensus is any guide to the credibility of a methodology or to the truth status of its claims, then science has a very poor track record since ALL past scientific theories have been abandoned as false. See "Superseded Scientific Theories" in wiki for an exhaustive list.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
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MrJohnnywonny 9 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny "You say that morality is subjective. If so, then so is that statement"
No I said morailty is subjecitve. That statement isn't a moral statement. If I say it wrong that moraily is subjective -- or that people who thing morality is subjecitve are evil then yes that would be subjective
"Morailty is discovered because it exists independent of human thought"
LOL you have to be kidding.. explain shira law then
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 It need not be a moral statement. Answer me this: when you say "Morality is subjective" do you believe this statement to be true - not just true for you, but objectively true?
MrJohnnywonny 8 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny Of course morailty is subjective.. everything is subjective unless you can provided soild proof. Otherwise all you have in an opinion.
For something to be objective the need to be mesuareble evidence.
Of course everyone is going to claim there morals are objective. but if 2 people with opposing views both claim to have the objective truth who is correct
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 "everything is subjective unless you can provided soild proof. "
--This is clearly false. Some people once believed the earth was flat three-layer cake and some believed the earth was a sphere. Both sides had decent justification for their beliefs, with no die-hard proof to settle the matter. But just because no one had any "solid proof" one way or another, it doesn't follow that there was no objective fact of the matter concerning the actual shape of the earth!
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 If morality were strictly subjective, then moral judgments would be exactly like judgments of personal taste. There would be no question of them being right or wrong. Conflicting opinions about rape, for example, would be no more right or wrong than conflicting opinions about pizzas vs. hamburgers, because the truth or correctness would simply depend upon the attitude, opinion, or belief of an individual subject or person.
MrJohnnywonny 8 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny "then moral judgments would be exactly like judgments of personal taste. "
Which they are. Like I said prove to me objectively that rape is wrong in all circumstances. however the law is another story.. the law isnt based on morals.. for instance adulatry may be immoral but is still legal ( in many countries)
badpanda84 8 months ago
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grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 ""moral judgments like judgments of taste"
"Which they are""
--But they aren't. Most people have no difficulty making the distinction (even if they can't always articulate in what that distinction consists) between their subjective personal taste in ice-cream and a fundamental objectively true moral Law like "Torturing innocent people for fun is morally wrong."
Your attempt to fit ALL evaluative judgments into non-cognitive expressions of personal taste is hopelessly reductive.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny The other problem is that lets say you belive that pre-martial sex is wrong--
Is that objectively wrong -- or is that merely your subjective opinion... and how can you tell the diffrence
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you presuppose that values are relative to cultures. You see, we first have to distinguish value-opinions (which are culturally relative) from values (which are not). Granted, different cultures have different opinions of what's right.Nazi Germany thought genocide was right. Cannibals think eating humans is right. But they're wrong about what's right! Thinking something is so doesn't make it so. Opinions are relative to cultures, but truth isn't.
MrJohnnywonny 8 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny "Opinions are relative to cultures, but truth isn't."
All morals are relative to cultures... but truth isn't relavie to culture -- I agree but like I said claim to to have the truth without suffienent evidence or proof is meaningless.
How can you tell the diffreent between the truth and someone claiming to have the truth
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 "How can you tell the diffreent between the truth and someone claiming to have the truth"
--By means of a moral principle coupled together with reasoned argumentation. Moral skepticism is unjustified if we can advance our moral understanding of why we take some things to be good without qualification and why some actions are right or wrong actions. That's what normative ethics DOES. Just because some things cannot be settled beyond controversy, doesn't mean they are "subjective."
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 Here is a list of possible candidates for a minimally basic objectively true moral set of principles most likely common to most cultures, giving strong evidence for objective morality:
(1)Do not kill innocent people,
(2)Do not cause unnecessary pain and suffering,
(3)Do not cheat or steal,
(4)Keep your promises and honor your contracts,
(5)Do justice, treating equals equally and unequals unequally
(6)Tell the truth,
(7)Help other people, at least when the cost is minimal to oneself.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@MrJohnnywonny "Thinking something is so doesn't make it so"
True I agree.. so someone claiming to have the truth dosent make it so.
".. But they're wrong about what's right! "
Says who--- says someone who is from another culture where it isn't acceptable.
For example Muslim think its wrong to allow women to wear bikinini where as it is acceptable in western culture.. Who is correct??
badpanda84 8 months ago
@badpanda84 "Muslim think women wearing bikininis is wrong, but it is acceptable in West"
--Every realist knows you are confusing an objective moral value w/ the particular application & form it takes in different cultures. All (or most) cultures value some form of modesty because it protects the intimate center of the person out of respect. The same value may look different, but that doesn't mean they disagree on the value of modesty itself--much less does it follow modesty is "subjective."
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@badpanda84 After heavy consideration, the best explanation for the phenomenon of disagreement is, NOT that morality is "subjective, but that human beings are highly fallible creatures. Human error is due to weakness of will, laziness, concupiscence, poor judgment, poor upbringing/education. We have morals precisely for this reason--to guide others to the Highest Good. And we can draw out these moral truths common to cultures in spite of their apparent "differences"--if we only apply ourselves.
grunderlyme 7 months ago
@grunderlyme "We have morals precisely for this reason--to guide others to the Highest Good"
Yes morals which vary according to culture and upbringing. -- that makes it subjective.
Like I said if you grew up in Iraq you are likely to belive that its immoral for women to wear bikinis.
badpanda84 7 months ago
@badpanda84 "Yes morals which vary according to culture and upbringing. -- that makes it subjective."
--No it doesn't. This is invalid. The first is merely a descriptive thesis that people in different cultures and upbringing will sometimes have different moral beliefs. That latter is the meta-ethical view that says truth-value of moral claims depend on the person or culture making them. The latter does not follow from the former.
grunderlyme 7 months ago