Quote:

---

Beneficial has nothing to do with anything. As stated before. You cannot reason that something is good or evil in gods eyes based of it is beneficial or not.

As I said, if I eat fettuccine alfredo for dinner instead of grilled chicken and veggies, does God see it as evil?

---

I don't think you understand the premise here.

First, the claim is made about evil, but this presupposes a working definition of evil. I'm parsing that into harmful, because I believe the poster is suggesting that anything that is harmful to our person (whole person, not merely physical) is evil. I don't know if that's the case, but I think it is a decent assumption.

Based on that, beneficial and evil share an identity relationship. So your sentence about good and evil in the eyes of God is saying that 1 doesn't equal 1. I'm sure I could write out a more detailed construction about this, because this presumes that God desires good or does not desire evil, and thefore that God desires benefit and not harm. But I don't think the presumption of God's goodness is out of line.

Your second question belies a misunderstanding of the point. The answer, of course, is it depends. If you eat to self-harm, that is evil. I don't believe that fettuccine alfredo is harmful, so on the face the answer is a qualified no. But there are all manner of ways to self-harm, and most people who have spent any amount of time thinking about morality recognize that not only the action but the intent is relevant here.

So, if you eat to self-harm, for taste, for enjoyment, because you want it, because you can't control yourself or because you don't want to control yourself -- whatever, that's bad no matter what the actual food is.

You're testing his premise -- some forms of sexual activity lead to self-harm -- without actually understanding his underlying assumption. That's why the point of consent is not relevant, and that's why your arguments aren't really addressing what he's talking about.

A better question to ask him is how can we recognize an activity as inherently harmful? For example, consuming strychnine is almost always harmful, it is inherently harmful. Drinking water is almost never harmful, it is almost inherently beneficial. Almost everything is situational.

He has yet to prove "harmful" though, so the rest of what you say is moot. He assumes that his definition of "not natural" is inherently harmful. It's not natural to be inoculated with a booster shot, but it is beneficial. If he holds that everything we do must be done to 100% possible best benefit for us to not be evil, then he is going far off of what the Bible prescribes and is no where near a purely reason based argument.

All philosophy makes an appeal to maximize the good in one way or another. Pleasure as the good vs standing in the way of the good is a millennia-old discussion. He's paraphrasing an argument that pleasure is not inherently good or beneficial, and pursuing pleasure as an end itself is inherently harmful. This can be done without an appeal to Christianity.

For example:
Pleasure is good, but all pleasures are temporary
The end of a pleasure brings about a kind of pain
Therefore seeking pleasure is futile and inherently painful

You're not even trying to engage in a real discussion here, you're just arguing.

This, though, is undeniably evil.

k2aggie07 said:

---

All philosophy makes an appeal to maximize the good in one way or another. Pleasure as the good vs standing in the way of the good is a millennia-old discussion. He's paraphrasing an argument that pleasure is not inherently good or beneficial, and pursuing pleasure as an end itself is inherently harmful. This can be done without an appeal to Christianity.

For example:
Pleasure is good, but all pleasures are temporary
The end of a pleasure brings about a kind of pain
Therefore seeking pleasure is futile and inherently painful

You're not even trying to engage in a real discussion here, you're just arguing.

---

Pleasure, if looked as a the purpose of life, becomes inherently good. The only question of standing in the way of pleasure would be if, by doing so, more pleasure overall would result.

He is the one that made the blanket statement that "it IS evil", with no qualifiers, with no exceptions, with no appeal to contextual basis. He has not defended it with anything other than saying it can be concluded by reason.

It looks to me like a valid argument has been turned into a semantics game, or casual trolling for philosophical debate that really doesn't address the subject matter of the thread.

It's naive to think there's possibility of a productive discussion when the thing being discussed, the starting point, is something as ridiculous as "two consenting adults pleasuring each other is evil, everywhere always." It's merely a transparent attempt to disguise religious rules with a pretense to "Reason" and logic or whatever. There's nowhere to go.

Argue with the stoics then. I think there is nuance here that y'all are missing.

Name the goal of this particular argument then. To imply that adult/minor relationships can only be called wrong if you call all non pro-creative sex between a husband and wife wrong?

This is pretty much the only thing you can ascertain from his initial post. Look at it again:

Quote:

---

An aside here, but, Christians can help the society- especially a society going down this strange path, by being consistent in their focus and correction.

It is like the outrage over homosexuality, but not pre-marital sex. Not masturbation. Not anal sex in marriage. Not non-coital sex in marriage. Not (list all other activities that are sexual inside or outside of marriage).

None of those are moral. This sets the broader consistent context for arguing effectively against things like bestiality, pedophilia, polygamy, etc.

---

One can only take away from this that either the poster is advocating for "Christians" to stop being outraged by homosexuality, or to start being outraged by all the other "non-coital acts of sex", even between married couples. However, the statement "none of those are moral" seems to imply that he wants Christians to be outraged by them all.

Yeah I really fail to see any nuance in A's assertion in question. I get that k2 is trying to rescue it or at least complicate it but the original problem(s) with it still haven't been resolved. There has been no compelling defense of why anal sex is necessarily harmful (always, everywhere, for everyone), let alone "evil." He wants to do it without resorting to "because I think God says so" but that's the only honest place it can go, the way I see it.

I don't hold to the Roman Church's teaching on sex so I don't want to take the task to defend it. But, I understand what they are saying, and this is what he's saying.

For one, as I've said, he's using harmful and evil as identical concepts. The thought process is more or less that non-procreative sex is purely for the sake of pleasure, and pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake, or pleasure as an end, is harmful. Again, this is a pre-Christian teaching.

I was thinking about this and I think there is also room for discussion about what is actually truly pleasurable. Is physical pleasure - that of any sense, as in sound or touch or sight or whatever - the highest good a person can experience? Or is there a pleasure of the intellect beyond what it's a sensory experience?

The answer to this may be a sharp divide even between Christians. And I think if someone affirms that non-sensory pleasure is inherently superior (as many of the ancients did) then the pursuit of sensory pleasure is at a disadvantage. If the pursuit of sensory pleasure precludes or inhibits that of the higher form, then the true objection to it becomes clearer, I think.

I don't think it is a 0 sum game.

Quote:

---

The thought process is more or less that non-procreative sex is purely for the sake of pleasure, and pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake, or pleasure as an end, is harmful.

---

I would assume that's his reasoning as well. The issue I have with it is that it seems to hold that "pleasure" is the only reason for non-procreative sex. I think it discounts the beauty of expressing one's love for their spouse in a very intimate way. It's not just pleasure, but helps build (for lack of better words) a stronger intimacy between the partners. If one wishes to not have non-procreative sex, that's certainly fine. I find it wrong to call non-procreative sex between spouses to be "evil" though.

Sure, which is why I don't hold to the rigid interpretation of Rome. I think this is a pastoral issue, not a doctrinal one. Can sex between married spouses be harmful? Of course. Can it be beneficial? Of course.

k2aggie07 said:

---

Sure, which is why I don't hold to the rigid interpretation of Rome. I think this is a pastoral issue, not a doctrinal one. Can sex between married spouses be harmful? Of course. Can it be beneficial? Of course.

---

Agreed.

Marco Esquandolas said:

---

Is this part of the "pedo agenda"?

---

absolutely. bring back Torquemada and have them burned at the stake.

We need accountability for everyone with the knowledge of these events and the power and authority to stop them. Prosecute them all the way to the top.

Bring back the good ol' days! (Said sarcastically, of course)

It's a hard knock life as a catholic school boy. Between the pedos and for profit bs it's tough these days.

Perfect time to shut down the whole catholic fraud.