The beauty of Catholic teachings

[madog]

You guys no shit about Catholicism so stop talking shit on my religion. You just want to make yourself feel like you can do whatever you want with no restrictions. The priests that were gay or molesters, only joined the Catholic Church in order to get close to the children. But the genuine priests are good people. True it does suck that sex is restricted to marriage (even though many Catholics have broken that), but it was the way God intended it to be; a special event between two people, not just something you can pick up off the street. If you don't believe in God I feel really sorry for you, but whatever. I'm not here to change everyone, just trying to be a good person and hope I don't burn eternally.

 

[CptStern]

More importantly... what soul?

silly it's the thing under my chin often refered to as "the adam's apple" ..see if you have one of those you go to heaven ...so, no really obese people or women in heaven just a collection of adam's apples ...so I'm trying to be really evil so I'll go to hell and not heaven where all the menz are (sounds kinda homersexual if you ask me :O )

 

[OvA]

Yeah, that's not just Catholicism but all of Christianity....

oh, and <3 stern

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

You guys no shit about Catholicism so stop talking shit on my religion. You just want to make yourself feel like you can do whatever you want with no restrictions. The priests that were gay or molesters, only joined the Catholic Church in order to get close to the children. But the genuine priests are good people. True it does suck that sex is restricted to marriage (even though many Catholics have broken that), but it was the way God intended it to be; a special event between two people, not just something you can pick up off the street. If you don't believe in God I feel really sorry for you, but whatever. I'm not here to change everyone, just trying to be a good person and hope I don't burn eternally.

What?

I'm Catholic too. I didn't really see anyone bashing in the thread though man, relax.

 

[madog]

silly it's the thing under my chin often refered to as "the adam's apple" ..see if you have one of those you go to heaven ...so, no really obese people or women in heaven just a collection of adam's apples ...so I'm trying to be really evil so I'll go to hell and not heaven where all the menz are ...sounds kinda homersexual if you ask me :O

Actually it was bad that Adam took a bite of the Forbidden apple. It was Eve who took it and gave it to him though.

 

[CptStern]

Actually it was bad that Adam took a bite of the Forbidden apple. It was Eve who took it and gave it to him though.

therefore Eve = teh EVIL

EVE
EVEL
EVIL






think about it



:O

 

[DeusExMachina]

how? I just said the american chapter has the same policies as the canadian one

Ohhhh. I read that wrong. My apologies.

 

[OCybrManO]

... or her name could mean that she was a bad-ass motorcycle daredevil. Evel Knievel. See?

I'm going to start the Holy Church of Adam & Evel. Instead of a baptism, you have to jump through a ring of fire on a motorcycle. Our holy scripture will be Easyriders magazine. Our pilgrimage will be to Daytona Beach, FL for Bike Week. The Fonz will be one of our many saints... so we can say "Fonz be with you" like in Family Guy.

 

[CptStern]

... or her name could mean that she was a bad-ass. Evel Knievel. See?

I'm going to start the Holy Church of Adam & Evel. Instead of a baptism, you have to jump through a ring of fire on a motorcycle. Our holy scripture will be Easyriders magazine. Our pilgrimage will be to Daytona Beach, FL for Bike Week.

hey I had Evel Knievel when I was a kid

does that mean I'm god :O

 

[Adabiviak]

Now you just have to get the Catholics to adhere to it.

 

[Direwolf]

That was a reference to an old belief about the "adams apple" that people used to repeat.

 

[evil^milk]

You guys no shit about Catholicism so stop talking shit on my religion. You just want to make yourself feel like you can do whatever you want with no restrictions. The priests that were gay or molesters, only joined the Catholic Church in order to get close to the children. But the genuine priests are good people. True it does suck that sex is restricted to marriage (even though many Catholics have broken that), but it was the way God intended it to be; a special event between two people, not just something you can pick up off the street. If you don't believe in God I feel really sorry for you, but whatever. I'm not here to change everyone, just trying to be a good person and hope I don't burn eternally.

if you were a true Catholic, you would be trying to change at least someone, like Last One In. But like you said, whatever.

 

[madog]

if you were a true Catholic, you would be trying to change at least someone, like Last One In. But like you said, whatever.

I am a true Catholic. I just don't like imposing my ideals on someone else, especially in my area since us Catholics are widely hated. People often get pissed and yell and stuff.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

I am a true Catholic. I just don't like imposing my ideals on someone else, especially in my area since us Catholics are widely hated. People often get pissed and yell and stuff.

But you live in Cali, huge hispanic population and a majority of them are Catholic, thus huge Catholic population, maybe the biggest in the Union, but I'm just guessing. Unless you mean by city, which I have no idea.

My church has a huge congregation- huge Catholic population in this area, so I've never really experienced that in person (lived in AZ all my life, and internet bashings don't count)

 

[madog]

well its just my city and school. The mexicans in my area are gangsters who dont give a shit about anything so i dont think most of them are Catholic.

 

[CptStern]

That was a reference to an old belief about the "adams apple" that people used to repeat.

the Evel Knievel part too?

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

The mexicans in my area are gangsters who dont give a shit about anything so i dont think most of them are Catholic.

Some of them probably but I highly doubt anything of a majority are losers.

 

[CptStern]

...I highly doubt anything of a majority are losers.

I disagree ...there's the Donner party ..ummm those guys who's plane crashed in the Andes and they ate each other and they made a movie of it called Alive (although it should have been called dead cuz most of them died) and then ...ummm ...oh ya ..kamikazes the majority of them were losers ...well at least the ones who got to fly

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

I disagree ...there's the Donner party ..ummm those guys who's plane crashed in the Andes and they ate each other and they made a movie of it called Alive (although it should have been called dead cuz most of them died) and then ...ummm ...oh ya ..kamikazes the majority of them were losers ...well at least the ones who got to fly

The biggest losers were the ones who tried to kamikaze but didn't kill or damage anything.

It's like when a suicide bomber goes off without damaging property or injuring anyone. I mean, do you be glad it happened.. or think "holy shit if he'd made it 50 more feet" or what? It's a weird thing.

 

[CptStern]

what about the ones who died while crashing landing without detonating their payload? at least the suicide bombers kill themselves ..the crashlanding kills the kamikaze not the explosive ..they couldnt be a bigger loser

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

what about the ones who died while crashing landing without detonating their payload? ..they couldnt be a bigger loser

The Biggest Loser is the biggest winner, 'cause they lost the most weight!

This thread is now about reality TV

 

[CptStern]

why? why did you have to introduce horror into this thread? ..you should have cut to the chase and just posted ...


....him

 

[Que-Ever]

why? why did you have to introduce horror into this thread? ..you should have cut to the chase and just posted ...


....him

fabulous.

 

[evil^milk]

lol who's that

 

[Top Secret]

In my opinion, Japanese pilots who commited Kamakazi were brave. Heh.

 

[MiccyNarc]

Is this guy actually trying to convert us? Manomanoman!

This website could give you reasons why I would never join a religion.

This website is full of garbage, quite frankly.
Neva's situation:
Let's see, she can live on earth for a few more years and die some painful death, or she can die quickly, albeit violently, and be taken to heaven early. Which do you choose?

And the kid that said he didn't believe in God, God didn't spare him, the gunman did.

The author is not objective and clearly has axe to grind. He's the kind of person that if gold poured from the sky around him, he'd complain that a piece hit him in the head and left a mark.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

In my opinion, Japanese pilots who commited Kamakazi were stupid. Heh.

Fixed.

Hell, even if you want to go on it about defending to the death- they could have dealt a lot more damage to the Marines and Navy had they actually utilized the equipment and pilots of the kamikaze squadrons, rather than pissing it away in usually futile plane-missile attacks.

 

[Captain M4d]

This website is full of garbage, quite frankly.
Neva's situation:
Let's see, she can live on earth for a few more years and die some painful death, or she can die quickly, albeit violently, and be taken to heaven early. Which do you choose?

And the kid that said he didn't believe in God, God didn't spare him, the gunman did.

The author is not objective and clearly has axe to grind. He's the kind of person that if gold poured from the sky around him, he'd complain that a piece hit him in the head and left a mark.

One poor man's garbage is one rich man's treasure.

 

[Neutrino]

Getting back to the original post....

Personally, I don't require/want the threat of hell/non-eternal life, etc in order to be a good person. Just my opinion.

Speaking of which, I think I have something floating around here that I wrote on the subject....I'm going to see if I can find it....

Ooh, I found it. I think the debate of goal (reward/punishment) based ethics versus non-goal based ethics is quite interesting.

Here's the post that really brings up this debate:

Catholicism teaches that this is the only right way through this life and that if you do otherwise you will not have eternal life. Being reminded of this every day makes a person live that way. What ship sailing through dark waters doesn't check his navagation chart to ensure safe travel?

It's an interesting controversy I find because, in a way, it embodies the difference between say athiestic and religious ethics. Please note that I'm not talking about a belief or non-belief in God, merely the ethical systems inherent to those belief systems and others.

Just like anything in ethics and/or philosphy the point can be argued either way of course, but here are my own thoughts on the subject:

I. Goals in Morality

When examining the issue of morality one comes across numerous philosophies, each containing their own ideas and modes of moral thought. These philosophies originate from many different backgrounds and from many different people. Most have very different ideas of how exactly to define morality and how to be moral. There is one moral issue, however, that can be used to differentiate some of these moral ideas into groups. This is the idea of whether or not there are ultimately goals or rewards for moral actions. Some say that by being a moral person one can reach a specific reward. Others say that no such rewards exist. This is a difficult debate that concerns one of the more important issues in moral theory.

In examining this debate and the issues that surround it I will first introduce some of the major moral philosophies that are involved and try to pinpoint the major difference in the two separate groups of thought. From there I will look at the idea of goals in morality and try to see just why these goals exist, if some goals are better than others, how goals might be helpful or harmful, and if these goals are even likely to really exist. Then I will compare the idea of moral goals to the idea that there are not goals and show that in the end goals are not necessary, nor even desirable, for morality.

II. The Two Moral Viewpoints

There are two groups of thought on the issue of goals in morality. On the one hand you have the philosophies that say there are end goals or rewards to being moral. On the other hand are the ones that say there are no goals or rewards for being moral.

In the first group you have philosophies like Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, Buddhism, Utilitarianism, and many forms of Christianity. While these ways of thinking are very different they all view morality as some sort of a means to an end. Aristotle says that one obtains happiness from being moral, Buddhism says that one can reach enlightenment, utilitarianism claims moral action leads to the greatest amount of pleasure, and Christianity says one must be moral to reach heaven. So although they all have very different goals in mind they are, none the less, related in saying that there is a goal to being moral.

Now in the second group there are philosophies such as Confucianism and Kantian ethics that say that one should be moral merely for the sake of being moral. They claim there are no goals or rewards for a moral action and Kant even goes on to say that there should not be any such goals. So in this group we have the argument that there are no end goals to moral action and that perhaps that such goals actually interfere with a person’s morality.

Thus, the major point of contention is the question of whether or not there are goals in morality. But, perhaps, this is not really the key difference in this debate. How does the existence, or non-existence, of goals affect morality and how does this debate apply to a person’s moral actions? By asking these questions one can realize that there are, indeed, deeper issues here than just the idea of goals versus no goals. The real issue is what the existence of such goals means with respect to morality and how they might affect human moral action.

III. Why are there Moral Goals?

To begin studying this argument it is important to first consider why some
philosophies have these goals. Even though many of these goals are quite different they still have strong similarities. Take the goals of happiness, pleasure, enlightenment, and heaven for example. Here we have four separate moral goals from four very different philosophies. Yet what is the one common strand that binds them together? It is the fact that every goal is positive. Every goal is the embodiment of something a person wants. One could argue that each goal, in its base idea, is just a form of emotional satisfaction.

Happiness and pleasure are two of the more obvious examples. These are emotions in themselves and have an immediate relation to our emotional satisfaction. The ideas of enlightenment and heaven are a bit more obscure in this sense, but they still represent some good, something that a person would like to have. For enlightenment a person obtains the ultimate level of existence and all illusions of reality are lifted away to reveal the truth of existence. Though this is a rather lofty idea it is still connected with our emotions. It satisfies our curiosity and longing to know the “truth” as well as providing us with a goal of “ultimate existence” to drive our ambition to improve ourselves. Next, consider the goal of heaven. Here we have a place where everything is perfect and we can know pure happiness. Also we can meet our Creator as well as lost loved ones. This is again directly related to our emotional needs in the fact that we achieve true happiness and a perfect existence, meet God and again discover the “truths” of reality, as well as becoming reunited with people who we’ve lost in life. Heaven is almost the ultimate in emotional satisfaction as it provides for every emotional need we could possibly have. Therefore, from very different moral goals we can find the common thread that each is related to our emotional satisfaction, or contentment, as human beings.

Of course this doesn’t necessarily validate or invalidate any of these ideas. But it does offer an interesting way of looking at them. I think that it might begin to answer the question of why these moral goals exist. As human beings we are driven by our emotions and wouldn’t it be nice to think that by being good, by being a moral person, we will achieve the emotional satisfaction that we yearn for? Although, this does not mean that this is the only reason why these goals have been created it does bring up the point that as humans we may be a bit biased in our opinions toward these ideas and that is seems quite convenient that the end rewards to our actions just happens to meet our emotional needs and wants.

This basically means that each moral goal provides some reward that we want. It gives us incentive to act morally by dangling the proverbial carrot in front of us and leading us along a moral path. So to get back to the question of why there are moral goals it seems that they exist solely to provide a reason for moral action.

IV. Are Some Goals Better than Others?

In a moral sense are some of these goals better than others? In each case the point of the goal is to reward a person for correct moral action and thus reinforce those actions through a positive future outcome. Well as a means of a reward some goals definitely offer more than others in the long term but others offer lesser amounts of happiness sooner. In the context of being a motivating force I think that it really would depend on an individual as to what goal would best inspire him or her to seek morality. Whichever goal provides the best reward for a person, and thus causes them to achieve the highest morality, would be the best goal in a strictly motivational sense, thought not necessarily in a moral sense.

V. Goals: Harmful or Helpful?

But taking the idea of moral goals as a whole, are they actually helpful or harmful in creating moral action? Here we start to see some of the more complex issues involved with the idea of goals. It’s not just a question of whether they exist or not, but it is now the question of if they do exist is that a good thing?

I think there are two sides to this question that both have valid points. First, a goal can help by rewarding a person for being moral. This can be a powerful motivating force and lead to many people choosing a moral action over an immoral action solely on the basis of receiving said reward. This seems like a positive situation because the goals have caused people to strive toward moral action.

However, taking a somewhat wider view of the circumstances, is this truly a good thing? By offering a reward are the goals really helping people become more moral or are they actually interfering? This brings up the other point in the argument. If a person only does something because of a reward perhaps they are not being moral at all. Maybe they do not care about the greater consequences of their actions, but only care about the end reward. This creates a dangerous situation in my opinion because a person may only base their action on a reward rather than future consequences of the action. It is, in effect, separating the motivation from the action. This is harmful I think because if a person’s motivation is not directly related to his or her action it leaves room for error and possible immorality. In other words, the effect does not follow directly from the cause and thus the outcome becomes uncertain.

VI. Do Moral Goals Even Exist?

In the above discussions it was assumed that there are actually such things as moral goals. But this is by no means a guaranteed thing and thus has a very important bearing on the entire argument. While this question cannot be proved one way or another, one can still show that there is much to doubt about the whole question of their existence. First, to relate back to my previous discussion about the “why” of moral goals, it seems almost too convenient that the rewards for being moral happen to relate directly to our emotional contentment or satisfaction. Secondly, the fact that there are numerous ideas of what these goals are sheds some doubt about their validity. Some say that morality leads to enlightenment; others say that morality leads to happiness, and yet others say that morality leads to heaven. Obviously not everyone can be right so this just brings more uncertainty into the equation because even if moral goals do exist, which one is it? These points do not disprove the idea of moral goals by any means, but they do show that their existence is not assured either.

This leads directly to a very important problem with moral goals. I’ve just shown that the existence of these goals is not an absolute. Therefore it is possible that they do not exist or at least exist in a different form than is known to us. So what does this mean to a person that follows goal based system of morals? If this person discovers that the goal they have been striving toward does not exist then he or she suddenly loses his or her only source of moral motivation. Hence forth the person will not be able to justify any moral action without falling back on a different system of thought.

VII. Conclusion: Goals Versus No Goals

So now we come back to a system of ethics that is based on moral goals or rewards versus a system that has no goals or rewards. To reiterate, on one side there is the system that depends on goals or rewards to guide moral action. In this case it is the goal that is the end justification to all morality. On the other side is the system that does not depend on goals and instead states that one should be moral only for the sake of being moral.
Although neither mode of thought is perfect I think that non-goal based ethics is the stronger moral theory. Above, I first examined why these goals may exist and showed that the each one seems to be based on essentially a selfish ambition of reaching emotional satisfaction or contentment. Next, I compared some of the goals and found that even if some are quite different they still all have the same purpose of guiding moral action. This conclusion led to the assessment of whether or not goals are harmful. Here I concluded that moral goals produce a dangerous rift between moral motivation and moral action, thus separating cause and effect, and leaving room open for immorality. Finally I explained that the existence of many of these moral goals is not assured, which illustrates the inherent instability of a goal based system when one takes away the end goal. Therefore I think that, while goals may be useful in sculpting a moral society, they are not necessary and can, in fact, introduce dangerous instabilities into a person’s morality.

 

[Last One In]

Getting back to the original post....

Personally, I don't require/want the threat of hell/non-eternal life, etc in order to be a good person. Just my opinion.

Speaking of which, I think I have something floating around here that I wrote on the subject....I'm going to see if I can find it....

Ooh, I found it. I think the debate of goal (reward/punishment) based ethics versus non-goal based ethics is quite interesting.

Here's the post that really brings up this debate:



It's an interesting controversy I find because, in a way, it embodies the difference between say athiestic and religious ethics. Please note that I'm not talking about a belief or non-belief in God, merely the ethical systems inherent to those belief systems and others.

Just like anything in ethics and/or philosphy the point can be argued either way of course, but here are my own thoughts on the subject:

I. Goals in Morality

When examining the issue of morality one comes across numerous philosophies, each containing their own ideas and modes of moral thought. These philosophies originate from many different backgrounds and from many different people. Most have very different ideas of how exactly to define morality and how to be moral. There is one moral issue, however, that can be used to differentiate some of these moral ideas into groups. This is the idea of whether or not there are ultimately goals or rewards for moral actions. Some say that by being a moral person one can reach a specific reward. Others say that no such rewards exist. This is a difficult debate that concerns one of the more important issues in moral theory.

In examining this debate and the issues that surround it I will first introduce some of the major moral philosophies that are involved and try to pinpoint the major difference in the two separate groups of thought. From there I will look at the idea of goals in morality and try to see just why these goals exist, if some goals are better than others, how goals might be helpful or harmful, and if these goals are even likely to really exist. Then I will compare the idea of moral goals to the idea that there are not goals and show that in the end goals are not necessary, nor even desirable, for morality.

II. The Two Moral Viewpoints

There are two groups of thought on the issue of goals in morality. On the one hand you have the philosophies that say there are end goals or rewards to being moral. On the other hand are the ones that say there are no goals or rewards for being moral.

In the first group you have philosophies like Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, Buddhism, Utilitarianism, and many forms of Christianity. While these ways of thinking are very different they all view morality as some sort of a means to an end. Aristotle says that one obtains happiness from being moral, Buddhism says that one can reach enlightenment, utilitarianism claims moral action leads to the greatest amount of pleasure, and Christianity says one must be moral to reach heaven. So although they all have very different goals in mind they are, none the less, related in saying that there is a goal to being moral.

Now in the second group there are philosophies such as Confucianism and Kantian ethics that say that one should be moral merely for the sake of being moral. They claim there are no goals or rewards for a moral action and Kant even goes on to say that there should not be any such goals. So in this group we have the argument that there are no end goals to moral action and that perhaps that such goals actually interfere with a person’s morality.

Thus, the major point of contention is the question of whether or not there are goals in morality. But, perhaps, this is not really the key difference in this debate. How does the existence, or non-existence, of goals affect morality and how does this debate apply to a person’s moral actions? By asking these questions one can realize that there are, indeed, deeper issues here than just the idea of goals versus no goals. The real issue is what the existence of such goals means with respect to morality and how they might affect human moral action.

III. Why are there Moral Goals?

To begin studying this argument it is important to first consider why some
philosophies have these goals. Even though many of these goals are quite different they still have strong similarities. Take the goals of happiness, pleasure, enlightenment, and heaven for example. Here we have four separate moral goals from four very different philosophies. Yet what is the one common strand that binds them together? It is the fact that every goal is positive. Every goal is the embodiment of something a person wants. One could argue that each goal, in its base idea, is just a form of emotional satisfaction.

Happiness and pleasure are two of the more obvious examples. These are emotions in themselves and have an immediate relation to our emotional satisfaction. The ideas of enlightenment and heaven are a bit more obscure in this sense, but they still represent some good, something that a person would like to have. For enlightenment a person obtains the ultimate level of existence and all illusions of reality are lifted away to reveal the truth of existence. Though this is a rather lofty idea it is still connected with our emotions. It satisfies our curiosity and longing to know the “truth” as well as providing us with a goal of “ultimate existence” to drive our ambition to improve ourselves. Next, consider the goal of heaven. Here we have a place where everything is perfect and we can know pure happiness. Also we can meet our Creator as well as lost loved ones. This is again directly related to our emotional needs in the fact that we achieve true happiness and a perfect existence, meet God and again discover the “truths” of reality, as well as becoming reunited with people who we’ve lost in life. Heaven is almost the ultimate in emotional satisfaction as it provides for every emotional need we could possibly have. Therefore, from very different moral goals we can find the common thread that each is related to our emotional satisfaction, or contentment, as human beings.

Of course this doesn’t necessarily validate or invalidate any of these ideas. But it does offer an interesting way of looking at them. I think that it might begin to answer the question of why these moral goals exist. As human beings we are driven by our emotions and wouldn’t it be nice to think that by being good, by being a moral person, we will achieve the emotional satisfaction that we yearn for? Although, this does not mean that this is the only reason why these goals have been created it does bring up the point that as humans we may be a bit biased in our opinions toward these ideas and that is seems quite convenient that the end rewards to our actions just happens to meet our emotional needs and wants.

This basically means that each moral goal provides some reward that we want. It gives us incentive to act morally by dangling the proverbial carrot in front of us and leading us along a moral path. So to get back to the question of why there are moral goals it seems that they exist solely to provide a reason for moral action.

IV. Are Some Goals Better than Others?

In a moral sense are some of these goals better than others? In each case the point of the goal is to reward a person for correct moral action and thus reinforce those actions through a positive future outcome. Well as a means of a reward some goals definitely offer more than others in the long term but others offer lesser amounts of happiness sooner. In the context of being a motivating force I think that it really would depend on an individual as to what goal would best inspire him or her to seek morality. Whichever goal provides the best reward for a person, and thus causes them to achieve the highest morality, would be the best goal in a strictly motivational sense, thought not necessarily in a moral sense.

V. Goals: Harmful or Helpful?

But taking the idea of moral goals as a whole, are they actually helpful or harmful in creating moral action? Here we start to see some of the more complex issues involved with the idea of goals. It’s not just a question of whether they exist or not, but it is now the question of if they do exist is that a good thing?

I think there are two sides to this question that both have valid points. First, a goal can help by rewarding a person for being moral. This can be a powerful motivating force and lead to many people choosing a moral action over an immoral action solely on the basis of receiving said reward. This seems like a positive situation because the goals have caused people to strive toward moral action.

However, taking a somewhat wider view of the circumstances, is this truly a good thing? By offering a reward are the goals really helping people become more moral or are they actually interfering? This brings up the other point in the argument. If a person only does something because of a reward perhaps they are not being moral at all. Maybe they do not care about the greater consequences of their actions, but only care about the end reward. This creates a dangerous situation in my opinion because a person may only base their action on a reward rather than future consequences of the action. It is, in effect, separating the motivation from the action. This is harmful I think because if a person’s motivation is not directly related to his or her action it leaves room for error and possible immorality. In other words, the effect does not follow directly from the cause and thus the outcome becomes uncertain.

VI. Do Moral Goals Even Exist?

In the above discussions it was assumed that there are actually such things as moral goals. But this is by no means a guaranteed thing and thus has a very important bearing on the entire argument. While this question cannot be proved one way or another, one can still show that there is much to doubt about the whole question of their existence. First, to relate back to my previous discussion about the “why” of moral goals, it seems almost too convenient that the rewards for being moral happen to relate directly to our emotional contentment or satisfaction. Secondly, the fact that there are numerous ideas of what these goals are sheds some doubt about their validity. Some say that morality leads to enlightenment; others say that morality leads to happiness, and yet others say that morality leads to heaven. Obviously not everyone can be right so this just brings more uncertainty into the equation because even if moral goals do exist, which one is it? These points do not disprove the idea of moral goals by any means, but they do show that their existence is not assured either.

This leads directly to a very important problem with moral goals. I’ve just shown that the existence of these goals is not an absolute. Therefore it is possible that they do not exist or at least exist in a different form than is known to us. So what does this mean to a person that follows goal based system of morals? If this person discovers that the goal they have been striving toward does not exist then he or she suddenly loses his or her only source of moral motivation. Hence forth the person will not be able to justify any moral action without falling back on a different system of thought.

VII. Conclusion: Goals Versus No Goals

So now we come back to a system of ethics that is based on moral goals or rewards versus a system that has no goals or rewards. To reiterate, on one side there is the system that depends on goals or rewards to guide moral action. In this case it is the goal that is the end justification to all morality. On the other side is the system that does not depend on goals and instead states that one should be moral only for the sake of being moral.
Although neither mode of thought is perfect I think that non-goal based ethics is the stronger moral theory. Above, I first examined why these goals may exist and showed that the each one seems to be based on essentially a selfish ambition of reaching emotional satisfaction or contentment. Next, I compared some of the goals and found that even if some are quite different they still all have the same purpose of guiding moral action. This conclusion led to the assessment of whether or not goals are harmful. Here I concluded that moral goals produce a dangerous rift between moral motivation and moral action, thus separating cause and effect, and leaving room open for immorality. Finally I explained that the existence of many of these moral goals is not assured, which illustrates the inherent instability of a goal based system when one takes away the end goal. Therefore I think that, while goals may be useful in sculpting a moral society, they are not necessary and can, in fact, introduce dangerous instabilities into a person’s morality.

Are these opinions formed on your experience in this world or are they formed from college classes?

 

[WhiteZero]

As I was reading this threads title, I was hoping it would say "The beauty of Catholic Schoolgirls"...
But I was let down.
:<

 

[Neutrino]

Are these opinions formed on your experience in this world or are they formed from college classes?

Experiences in this world. Learning about ethical theories from a class is good. In general, forming philosophical opinions based on a class is not.

I realize you were trying to invalidate my post by insinuating that I was just spewing learned theory. Please rest assured that I was not.

 

[Last One In]

Experiences in this world. Learning about ethical theories from a class is good. In general, forming philosophical opinions based on a class is not.

I realize you were trying to invalidate my post by insinuating that I was just spewing learned theory. Please rest assured that I was not.

I was indeed trying to invalidate your post; but if your opinions were formed from experience, then they are valid. I think opinions that one spews from class are those that are invalid. I also agree with you about learning philisophical teachings, as some have fruit that others do not.

 

[ktimekiller]

although im a christian myself, i dont exactly enjoy wathcing people spread it, if they believe else, let them.

 

[Neutrino]

I was indeed trying to invalidate your post; but if your opinions were formed from experience, then they are valid. I think opinions that one spews from class are those that are invalid.

Thanks. I do apologize for the horrible formulaic style as it was a requirement of the paper I was writing and not my own choice. I didn't really like using a previous paper, but that's pretty much what I wanted to say and I couldn't be assed to rewrite it.

I also agree with you about learning philisophical teachings, as some have fruit that others do not.

Couldn't agree more. I find it quite interesting to learn about all the philosophical/ethical theories out there. I can't say I agree with any of them as I have yet to find one that is completely self consistant nor one that answers all the questions. But some are better than others and some have some bring up some interesting points atleast.

 

[Last One In]

have you read the Tao te ching? It has some very good insights into the nature of government and into man's nature in general. Also there a book by M. Scott Peck called "The Road Less Traveled." That was a good read as well. There are a thousand books out there in which one could find insightful teachings, but these are two that I know of.

 

[Dan]

I think you can pretty much sum it up as "don't be a jerk"

 

[Apos]

Catholicism teaches that this is the only right way through this life and that if you do otherwise you will not have eternal life.

Being good merely because you are threatened with the ultimate punishment is not exactly laudable behavior. And no matter how evil someone is, they certainly NEVER deserve eternal torment. Not even Hitler deserves _eternal_ torment. The very idea is so barbaric and immoral that it pretty much dwarfs everything else

Being reminded of this every day makes a person live that way.

I guess it could, but it would be a lot more natural and better if the person just wanted to live that way because he values other people in the first place.

It isn't about fear, its about love. "God so loved the world that he gave his only son".

People who love me wouldn't pointlessly kill their sons and then try to make me feel guilty about it.

His son gave us a new way to think; his way was unselfish, loving, dignified. It makes me wonder why in the deuce he was, and still is, hated.

I don't hate the character of Jesus. I just am not impressed that one religion claims THEIR guy is cooler than someone else's guy. Certainly there are some laudable moral teachings in the accounts of Jesus' teachings. but he was hardly the first nor the last, nor even arguably the best moral philosopher.

You just want to make yourself feel like you can do whatever you want with no restrictions.

I'll thank you not to impugn my motives for not believing your claims.

The priests that were gay or molesters, only joined the Catholic Church in order to get close to the children.

Actually, in many of these cases, it appears that they were people who were made worse off by supressing sexual desire, and becuase they never grew up, they focused their attention on children.

hope I don't burn eternally.

I hope you don't either! In fact, anyone that would consign someone to that is a monster beyond imagining.

 

[Top Secret]

Fixed.

Hell, even if you want to go on it about defending to the death- they could have dealt a lot more damage to the Marines and Navy had they actually utilized the equipment and pilots of the kamikaze squadrons, rather than pissing it away in usually futile plane-missile attacks.

Actually, no they couldn't. =) Go go History Channel. Japanese pilots would purposely leave some of their payload on their planes when they crashed into ships. Why? Guided bomb. It worked quite well.

 

[Dan]

Also the Kamikaze pilots weren't real pilots. They have the bare minimum of training to take off usually. Well trained pilots take a lot of time. Something the Japanese didn't have.

Also I've been reading up on Japanese history recently. The author of this books claims that idea of the "honourable" samurai only came about because of bored nobles who wanted to prove that they weren't just useless parasites (which they were). So they went around with their armour and talk of honour and got into fights with little provocation or whenever the peasants got out of line, and killing themselves when they were dishonoured. The original samurai that were actually fighting in real power struggles 100s of years before that tended to be less willing to throw away their lives and weren't always quite so loyal.