For some years I have been building a case about moral knowledge, moral denial, and the revenge of conscience. In this new series, I will simply and concisely put all the pieces of the argument in one place. It will run only on Thursdays, with posts on other topics several other times a week. This is all copyrighted, of course.
Why was former President George W. Bush so resolute in assembling a coalition and a massive accumulation of force to achieve regime change during the Second Iraq War – but so irresolute (though not so irresolute as his successor) in stabilizing the country afterward?
Many a louse parades his exquisite capacity for compassion, and I have taken my turn among the louses. So you will understand that I am not boasting of my virtue when I remark that ever since coming of age I have been acutely uneasy about social wrongs.
Question:
“The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth.”
Could it be that for many people the debate about homosexuality has less to do with homosexual than heterosexual behavior?
Consider the popular line, “They can’t help how they feel.” This proposition is the minor premise of an implied syllogism, the major premise of which may be put, “To act upon a desire which one cannot help feeling is always blameless.”
What are we to think of seemingly irrational government regulations, such as the proposed rule which would treat a mud puddle on a farmer’s land the same as a navigable river? I suppose there might somewhere exist a few addle-pated regulators who really believe that the future of the planet depends on such edicts, but there couldn’t be many of them. I think there is more to it.
“Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense. They seek after mad oriental religions for the same reason. They try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the priests of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares.”
To the argument that the universe was caused by God, the village atheist retort is “Oh yeah? Then what caused God?”
But the argument isn’t that every being requires a cause. The village atheist is quite correct that if B causes A, C causes B, D causes C, and so on without end, we have a problem. Nothing has ultimately been explained.
Well, your little digression about Christianity has been interesting, but it only strengthens my feeling that natural law theory is too religious.
What do you mean by "too religious"?
You only say there is a God because of the Bible.