![Cultish delusions [1213x1351 - 182KB]](https://pic8.co/sh/qHDfBL.jpg){kind=link}
No. But I am saying that you and almost everyone else in various degrees are victims of an economic system that for centuries has ceased to have any mind for moral considerations. But whatever the unjust situations in which we find ourselves, no good end sought justifies evil means to attaining it - and if evil means are employed regardless, the end attained will not be peace or goodness of any kind.
Here, perhaps, Christianity is at odds in the real world. In the real world, immoral conditions cause people to perform immoral actions in order to defend themselves and their families. Theoretically this might be immoral, but raising that consideration to people in desperate situations doesn't convince them to act otherwise.
It is self-preservation that makes the world go round, not concern for what's right.
(The earth is stationary.)
"...but whoever does not have, even what he does have shall be taken." [Matthew 13:12]
The issue is ascertaining why a person finds themselves in desperation. So often, we are the cause of our own despair.
This is why the gate to heaven is narrow because evil begets evil begets evil.
There is no question that a suffering person can behave morally. This idea that a desperate person must be immoral to survive is simply wrong.
I suppose the particular sort of desperation is what is at stake. Does the enslaved person have a moral pass to kill the person who took him as a slave?
Does a starving person have a right to harm others to acquire food?
In the first example, my answer is yes. In the second, it is no. The simple way to show this might be to demonstrate how the person's confounding was the result of improper actions at the start of the causal chain which lead to their situation of starving. We might also ask what other options exist to acquire food: charity, for example, which were available (but perhaps less convenient at the time) than killing someone to raid their fridge.
Wait about instead of physically harming someone for food, you steal their jewelry to pawn, for food?
I remember hearing from a black woman that it is okay for slaves to rape their white slaveowner woman, and that it's not rape, because rape requires having the power advantage.
I said that rape is immoral.
Here you're encouraging the slave to kill the slavemaster.
There's something that allows us to say, okay, murder is okay, because it is a cessation of life. But rape is not okay, because it will induce suffering, or long-lasting suffering.
But would say, no no, rape is much better than murder. Because non-existence is an evil. But rape is just a pain, and living longer gives you more chance to convert to Catholicism.
So, were someone to fall into an industrial grinder and be dead in 5 seconds unless you turn it off by the switch, but an oracle tells you they will die in 15 minutes in excruciating pain if you turn off the switch, would advocate pressing the switch, because that's more time for them to convert to Catholicism.
Praise God!
Here, perhaps, Christianity is at odds in the real world
Christianity is and always has been at odds with "the spirit of the world" (, , , ).
As for convincing, there is scarce a rational argument that will persuade anyone in dire straits, unless such a one already possesses great virtues. And if the sacrifice required is great, it may require supernatural virtues in addition to cardinal virtues and the like. So I appeal more to grace than argument to "convince".
(The earth is stationary.)
Based.
Grace aside.
You have people like me who are very "morally interested." Nevertheless, I fail to be convinced that masturbation is wrong. Now, this could be demons, or an absence of grace, or weak will, or whatever.
I mean, I'm more inclined to say that it is weak will that keeps me eating meat, than to say that it is weak will that keeps me fapping. The thing is, I actually see some kind of argument about why eating meat is wrong. Whereas, I'm unconvinced about the immorality of fapping.
There isn't a rational argument here. It's an appeal to intuition. If you make a volley in an argument, and I don't know how to reply to it, but it fails to convince, I suspect there is some kind of reason that my brain knows about that I don't.
(Wait I am my brain; identity theory.)
As for concern for the afterlife rather than this one... Well, that only works if you believe in the afterlife. Also, there is no afterlife.
But even if there were.
People are fine with sacrificing their eternal afterlives to protect the temporal lives of their children. This is not an instinct that's going to go away. It seems wrong to condemn them to hell for something where they "could not have done otherwise", but such is God.
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