Porn…and Metaphysics?

Besides recent events in Chicago, this video has been making rounds on the internet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kvzamjQW9M

It’s interesting to see how most people today need and require physical experience or demonstration before believing something, when knowledge about a things nature is a suitable guide.

Modern science alone doesn’t give us incorrect data, in fact its quite reliable. But if it is seen as the only way to truth, it will inevitably give us an incomplete picture of the world. On its face pornography is a completely satisfying exercise of personal freedom. What can it hurt? No one is being [physically] harmed. Despite the fact that Russell used the word ‘function’ as opposed to telos or purpose, and ‘biological programming’ as opposed to nature, he hit on same reality: man ought to act according to his purpose and when he doesn’t he hurts himself. The physical effects might not be as immediately apparent as when you take a bat to someone’s head or when we drive drunk, but they eventually appear, and hence empirical science more often finds itself, initially calling into question as baseless, and then later affirming, conventional wisdom.

What other pieces of common sense are deemed illusory just because they aren’t demonstrable right now? So the ancients were deceived about the relationship of the sun to the earth, we’re over it. Were they also deceived about natural law? Silly primitive people.

Yes, John Paul II gave a profound examination of sexuality in Theology of the Body. However, I think Benedict XVI struck even more profoundly the general root of our problem:

“The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil….If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment?” – Benedict XVI’s Easter Message 2012

For the good of society, we need metaphysical science.