Just saw this thread. I saw that movie a while ago when it made it's premiere and it was really good. It was really sad. I do have to say that while I felt bad for the realization of sigorney weaver's character, I did not feel bad for her. It was her actions directly that led to the conclusion of the movie.
That being said, I can see that I'm jumping into this thread rather late, and I perused over the comments, so I do apologize if anything I'm responding to has already been said, but I did not see that it had.
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Seppuku, you are right. There are a number of different interpretations of natural law, but the underlying message is essentially the same. I like the way G.K. Chesterton explains it.
From G. K. Chesterton from “Brave New Family”:
“When Catholics talk, as they have always talked, about natural law, they mean something which could be better translated into modern English as the human law. They mean the law of mans moral status, as it can be perceived by man’s natural reason, even without supernatural aid. And when they say that contraception is unnatural, they mean it as they mean that sexual perversion is unnatural. That is, it is unnatural in man, and not merely unnatural in nature. It is something which his own instincts, conscience and imaginative foresight tell him is unworthy of his human dignity; not merely something that interferes with what comes form outside, like a shower of rain or a thunderbolt.”
“By the way, the Natural Law does not mean the Law of Nature; which moderns talk bout when they mean the Lawlessness of Nature. It means the truth which Man can perceive even through his own nature; without the supernatural that is above nature. . . . We need not notice the idiots who insist that we must mean noninterference with common external growth; as if no Catholic could cut down a tree.”
If people would follow this simple advice, there is no way we would live in a country that allows mothers to murder their own babies. There is no way we would live in a country that supports engaging in sex outside of marriage. And there is no way we would live in a country that supports homosexual acts.
Why would anyone without the aid of a supernatural being declare that things such as homosexuality is immoral?
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That's a good point you bring up, believers often as a last resort will tell me "just try god for a little while and you'll see". I have tried god and I didn't see. They need to try not believing for a little while and then perhaps they'll be in a position to make intelligent comments.
The problem is, that while many atheists have been in the shoes of the believers and do know what they mean and where they come from, it is next to impossible for a believer to step into the shoes of an atheist as they have no clue where an atheist is coming from.
