(To the tune of “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” here sung by Fats Waller.

I'm gonna sit right down and write a good objection

And then show why it can't be true

I’m gonna fill it up with smarts

It’s gonna fly right off the charts

A lot of comments on the margin

It’ll be a bargain

I’m gonna smile and say I hope I’ve got an answer

And close the way I always do

I'm gonna sit right down and write a good objection

And then show why it can't be true

We are not just knowers, but seekers, who spontaneously incline toward certain realities other than ourselves.

When I say that this attraction is spontaneous, I do not mean that it is arbitrary, because that is not the way that we experience it.  One way of saying this is that we do not merely experience ourselves as drawn to things; we experience the things themselves as being such as to draw us.  Our word for their being so – and there is such a word in every language – is “good”; goodness is the quality of being such as to draw us.

So another way to express what I am saying is that we experience certain things as good, and experience ourselves as drawn to them because of their goodness; we are designed to be so drawn.

We are magnetized.

With an air of demystification, subjectivists like Thomas Hobbes announced to us that it is the other way around.  They deny that we are inclined toward things because they are good.  Instead, they say, we call them good because we happen to be inclined toward them (as we may happen to be inclined to different things tomorrow).  Goodness is merely a name, and inclination does not point outside itself after all; it just is.

But this is not just bad theory, it is a bad description of the experience.  If you ask a man “Why do you love that woman?” he does not normally reply by telling you about himself – “I just do” – but by telling you about her – “Because she is wonderful.”

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SURGEONS CONVERT MAN INTO JELLYFISH
Proves there is no natural law, scientists say

AUSTIN (CMM) -- In a 14-hour surgical marathon, doctors at Seton Hospital turned Austin man Clinton Confuso into a jellyfish.  Surgeons took 14 hours to remove most of his vital organs, including his brain and central nervous system, enclosing what was left in a new, biosynthetic body which resembles a used plastic bag.

In a statement recorded for the press on the day before surgery, the patient said “I always knew I was a jellyfish.”  Added wife of twelve years Crissy Confuso, “So did I.”

Hospital authorities say the former Mr. Confuso, now known by his jellyfish name, Medusa, is doing well.  Recovery ward staff reported that immediately after surgery he seemed to be signaling that he wanted a latte.  “We think he was joking,” said an unidentified nurse.  “If he can joke,” she added thoughtfully.

Reaction to the pioneering species-change surgery has been swift.  Medical researcher Trine Schtopmie said “This proves that there is no natural law.  There are no rules.  We can all relax.”  Asked for comment, the receptionist at People for Treating Humans Like Animals (PETHLA) tearfully recited the lyrics of “Imagine,” a ballad believed to have been popular in the era of singer Rudolph Valentino.

Sources report that the new jellyfish has already been offered a job modeling a Lava Lamp [see photo].  At present, however, he is resting and considering his options. 

Query:

St. Augustine seems to have allowed for prostitution on the grounds that the evil that would arise from stamping it out would exceed the evil of letting it be with restrictions.

We live in a polity that has already accepted homosexual acts and even homosexual "marriage".  Should we take Augustine's attitude toward homosexual acts, or is homosexual behavior too destructive to be countenanced?

Reply:

Take a look at Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 96, Art. 2.  He agrees with St. Augustine that sometimes the attempt to suppress a vice causes even more harm than the vice causes by itself.  “Now human law,” he concludes, “is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue.  Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.”

I should say that the danger to our own social order is not that a relatively small number of people engage in same-sex acts, but that a great number of people are approaching the view that the bodily powers have no purpose but physical pleasure, and that not even marriage has any necessary connection with either the procreation of children or the union of their parents.  One might say that heterosexuals are coming to accept an essentially homosexual view of sex.

Related posts:

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Nature, For and Against, Part 3 of 7

Nature, For and Against, Part 7 of 7

Book:  On the Meaning of Sex

TEXAS CITY SUFFERS SUB-SUB-ARCTIC COLD

Portent of Global Cooling, Scientists Warn

AUSTIN, TEXAS (CMM) – An unexpected summer cold snap shocked the Texas capital yesterday as the mercury plunged to minus 17,966° F.

Nicholas Huffenpuff, director of development for the Climate Research Unit, East Anglia, U.K., warned of “an impending era of global cooling” and said “This is a wake-up call for the human race.”

A dozen environmental organizations including the Terran Planetary Trust, the Burnt Umber Club, People for Giving Ethics the Treatment, and the Weather Liberation Front issued press releases calling for a new climate summit.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., demanded an immediate tripling of the federal budget to deal with the problem.  Republicans, as usual, had nothing constructive to say.

At the Vatican, an unidentified highly-placed source told reporters that the release of particulate matter into the upper atmosphere, blocking the rays of the sun, “has got to stop” and that an increase in greenhouse gasses is urgently needed to compensate.  “About 50 billion metric tons annually should do it.”

On the street, Austin citizens seemed more puzzled than concerned.  Munching on a taco at an outdoor food wagon, Michael Stubbistoe said “How can it minus 18 thou?  Isn’t that almost, like, absolute zero?”  Michelle Caterwaul, his companion, said “Feels like about 78° to me.  I think someone’s weather app just made a mistake.”

Asked to comment, climate spokesman Huffenpuff said, “Attitudes like that are just anti-science.”

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