The hole in your reasoning is that you make no allowance for abstaining as a viable choice, long term. Certainly we all engage in risk-benefit analysis to varying degrees in everything we do. But, unless there is some sort of standard, it become nothing more than situational ethics. I argue for a moral standard that is not meant to deprive anyone of true benefit, but merely states where and when that benefit is to be found and enjoyed.
See, it's not enough for you to go out and live your life morally and be happy. You have to criticize my life and my attitude knowing essentially nothing about me. Why can't you accept that you are happy the way you are and that I am happy the way I am? I'm not telling you that there is something wrong with the way you live your life. What gives you the right or authority to deem my attitude and life shallow?
It is my opinion, based on what you have said. Obviously you have a different one. That doesn't, on the face of it, make either opinion more or less valid than the other. But, if there is a higher moral standard, then our respective opinions can be weighed against that, and their relative shallowness or lack of such can be assessed. I believe there is a higher moral standard than what benefits me and satisfies my needs and wants. I would say that you probably don't believe that, based on what you have written here to various other posters.
I don't understand. You say that you hurt a bunch when you broke up with a woman that you were just fornicating with? And you say that if I never experienced that pain, then I've never really loved? So the only way I can have loved is by breaking up with a woman I'm fornicating with and experiencing the rending of that spiritual union? I really don't get it...
I felt that pain when I divorced my wife (due to her infidelities). I experienced the same pain subsequently after having been sexually involved with several women after my divorce (relationships of some length). It finally became clear to me what that pain was, and how to avoid it in the future. You, on the other hand, are trying to twist what I said into something I didn't say. You are not going to win any points through intellectual dishonesty. Perhaps I should have stated it thusly: If you have ever really loved, especially when sex is involved, if that union is torn apart by breakup or divorce, you would know the pain I am talking about.
Of course. Do you even understand what a risk-benefit analysis is? It's not placing a moral judgement on anything. All it is is a way for people to make decisions based on the perceived risk and perceived benefit of any given course of action. It is a basic cognitive process and everyone does it - even you. You are correct when you say that the risk-benefit analysis is a selfish act - by defintion, it has to be. This doesn't mean one has to exclude others from the analysis - for instnace, if I choose a course of action that hurts someone, it makes me feel bad so I don't choose that course of action.
Yes, I understand perfectly well what a risk-benefit analysis is. And I do not deny that it is at its base a selfish analysis. What I am trying to get across, as I stated earlier, is that a higher moral authority should be a consideration in the analysis of risk vs benefit in order to take into account the unintended and sometimes unknown side-effects of any action, no matter how carefully things may have been considered. Otherwise, the whole analysis is primarily a self-centered exercise in self-gratification, with only passing thought given to the effects of that action on another or others. The higher moral authority gives principles and a code of conduct that is for the greater good, with provision made for when a given course of action is not only proper, but beneficial. It is an impartial and uninvolved witness to what ultimately is a selfish and partial analysis.
Don't you see that even your statement that you would avoid a course of action, if after analysis you felt it would hurt some and make you feel bad, is still a self-centered action? It's still all about you. True love isn't about you it's about the other person. True love will disregard its own benefit to be sure that the object of that love receives its benefit.
There is no truer love that what Jesus Christ did in dying for the sins of His People. All other love pales in comparison to that. Lately, I have decided that living by His standards is more beneficial to me, both short and long term, than living only for my own gratification.