A member of Catholic Answers Forums has just revealed they have SSA, what do you tell them?

[manualman]

If Humans are not all the same, help me understand how you reconcile this with Paul…for don’t you know…we are descendants of Adam…

A good effort at detailed exegesis. But it breaks down here. You really haven’t noticed particular differences in people as to their disordered inclinations? You don’t think some people are more vulnerable to alcoholism than others by biology rather than psychology? Gluttony? Violence?

I think you are attempting to oversimplify the passage. Paul is saying that we all share in common the fallenness of sin. He’s not saying that concupiscence manifests itself identically in all people. At least I don’t see that in there anywhere.

Different kinds of concupiscence incline people towards different kinds of sins. Virtue is what we call it when we identify and practice ways of overcoming our particular forms of concupiscence.

 

[CopticChristian]

A good effort at detailed exegesis. But it breaks down here. You really haven’t noticed particular differences in people as to their disordered inclinations? **You don’t think some people are more vulnerable to alcoholism than others by biology rather than psychology? ** Gluttony? Violence?

I think you are attempting to oversimplify the passage. Paul is saying that we all share in common the fallenness of sin. He’s not saying that concupiscence manifests itself identically in all people. At least I don’t see that in there anywhere.

**Different kinds of concupiscence **incline people towards different kinds of sins. Virtue is what we call it when we identify and practice ways of overcoming our particular forms of concupiscence.

No I don’t and I don’t have time now but there is data to support this and you are wrong. Stanton Peele has data to support what I believe and disprove what you believe. You can find it in his book “The Truth about Addiction”…read it.

Teach me with sources as to categories and species of concupiscence…because here is what Paul says…it reminds me of the movie a few good men…danger…would you say extreme danger…is there any other kind?

The Conflict of Two Natures

  14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

  21I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

 

[thistle]

This is an absurd assertion. You can’t know that. You certainly can’t demonstrate it from Scripture or Tradition. Humans are not all the same. I know full well that there are people who self-identify as ‘gay’ that came to that conclusion from wounds in their past. I know this because I’m related to a guy who went through this, resolved things and now has been happily married for 18 years and has more kids than I do.

But he’s not all ‘gay’ men. One size doesn’t fit all. There may well be millions of persons on earth that have such a deep seated homosexual attraction that it can’t be altered. It’s ridiculous to claim that you have been given so special knowledge to the contrary.

The Church indeed teaches that homosexual attractions are themselves disordered. This doesn’t mean they can be ‘fixed.’ Alcoholics have a disorded attraction to alcohol. I (and probably you) still have a disordered sexuality in that when a busty bikini girl shows up on the TV screen to sell soap (or whatever) our first thoughts are probably not “how sad that she’s reduced to just her body that way.” Alcoholics can learn to control their disordered inclincations and so can us men who mostly have a disordered inclination to lust (properly defined) for women.

ALL humans have disordered inclinations. It’s called Original Sin. Persons that are homosexual must not be singled out as if their disordered inclination makes them moral lepers (unclean, unclean!).

THIS is the balance we must strike as christians. We can’t do as one poster here fell for and encourage them to give into their sinful desires, but we ALSO can’t forget that just because their favorite sins are different than ours that we’re better than they are. We need a Savior as badly as anybody else.

Then please provide me with the scientific studies that show a person can be born gay.
There is no gay gene.

 

[He_Man]

It’s the Catholics that constantly bash the gays that give us a bad name. Believing that it’s wrong, and completely bashing them are two different things. God wouldn’t want you to be judging them like some of you are. Remember, they’re God’s work, not yours.

Who is bashing anyone?

Pointing out certain behaviors are wrong is no where near bashing. It is Christian charity, and it can be educating those who are here to learn. We do the same for pornography, pre-marital heterosexual sex, contraception, and other problems.

This topic has been completely civil, but EVERY time the topic comes up, someone chides Catholics for bashing or some other mistreatment. Please.

 

[Sneaux]

Who is bashing anyone?

Pointing out certain behaviors are wrong is no where near bashing. It is Christian charity, and it can be educating those who are here to learn. We do the same for pornography, pre-marital heterosexual sex, contraception, and other problems.

This topic has been completely civil, but EVERY time the topic comes up, someone chides Catholics for bashing or some other mistreatment. Please.

What I was talking about when I said that was when someone said gays couldn’t be Christians. I wasn’t pointing it towards anyone else.

 

[He_Man]

What I was talking about when I said that was when someone said gays couldn’t be Christians. I wasn’t pointing it towards anyone else.

Roger. I thought the topic was relatively civil, so I was confused. got it.

 

[CopticChristian]

So, gay people can’t have faith in Christ just because they’re gay?

Sneax,

Help me understand how you draw that conclusion from this?

Sorry about this…I ask that you refer to people with same sex attraction as heterosexuals with same sex attraction and not use “gay” anything. Gay implies acceptance of an agenda and I ask you not to propogate that notion about “gay Christian”…there is no such thing.

 

[CopticChristian]

A good effort at detailed exegesis. But it breaks down here. You really haven’t noticed particular differences in people as to their disordered inclinations? You don’t think some people are more vulnerable to alcoholism than others by biology rather than psychology? Gluttony? Violence?
I think you are attempting to oversimplify the passage. Paul is saying that we all share in common the fallenness of sin. He’s not saying that concupiscence manifests itself identically in all people. At least I don’t see that in there anywhere.

Different kinds of concupiscence incline people towards different kinds of sins. Virtue is what we call it when we identify and practice ways of overcoming our particular forms of concupiscence.

From Stanton Peele,PhD…The Truth about Addiction

Why the Disease Model Is Wrong

Every major tenet of the “disease” view of addiction is refuted both by scientific research and by everyday observation. This is true even for alcoholism and drug addiction, let alone the many other behaviors that plainly have little to do with biology and medicine.

No biological or genetic mechanisms have been identified that account for addictive behavior. Even for alcoholism, as the following chapter will show, the evidence for genetic inheritance is unconvincing. By now, probably every well-informed reader has heard announcements that scientists have discovered a gene that causes alcoholism. In fact, as one of us wrote in The Atlantic, this is far from the case, and the study that prompted these claims has already been refuted by another study in the same journal.1 Moreover, if a gene were found to influence alcoholism, would the same gene cause drug addiction? Would it be related to smoking? Would it also cause compulsive gambling and overeating? If so, this would mean that everyone with any of these addictions has this genetic inheritance. Indeed, given the ubiquity of the problems described, the person without this inheritance would seem to be the notable exception.

How could an addiction like smoking be genetic? Why are some types of people more likely to smoke than others (about half of waitresses and car salesmen smoke, compared with about a tenth of lawyers and doctors)? And does believing that an addiction like smoking is genetic help the person quit (are all those smokers who quit not “genetically” addicted)? Returning to alcohol, are people really predestined biologically to become alcoholics and thus to become A.A. members? Think about the rock group Aerosmith: all five members of this group now belong to A.A., just as they once all drank and took drugs together. How unlikely a coincidence it is that five unrelated people with the alcoholic/addictive inheritance should run into one another and form a band!

The idea that genes make you become alcoholic cannot possibly help us understand how people develop drinking problems over years, why they choose on so many occasions to go out drinking, how they become members of heavy-drinking groups, and how drinkers are so influenced by the circumstances of their lives. Genes may make a person unusually sensitive to the physiological effects of alcohol; a person can find drinking extremely relaxing or enjoyable; but this says nothing about how the person drinks over the course of a lifetime. After all, some people say, “I never have more than one or two drinks at a time, because alcohol goes straight to my head.”

As we document here and in the following chapter, we can actually predict the likelihood of people’s becoming addicted far more reliably from their nationality and social class, from the social groups they join, and from their beliefs and expectations about alcohol or drugs (or other activities), than from their biological makeup.2 Often, people who become addicted set themselves up by investing a substance or an experience with magical powers to transform their beings (“Getting drunk is great”; “When I drink I’m really at ease”; “Drinking makes me attractive to people of the opposite sex”).3 It is simply not within the chemical properties of alcohol or a drug, or the experience of an activity like shopping, to offer people what they want and seek from an addiction. People find this in an addiction when they believe they can’t achieve the feelings they need in ordinary ways. Clearly, attitudes, values, and the opportunities available in a person’s environment have much to do with whether the person has a significant risk for a particular addiction.

 

[CopticChristian]

A good effort at detailed exegesis. But it breaks down here. You really haven’t noticed particular differences in people as to their disordered inclinations? You don’t think some people are more vulnerable to alcoholism than others by biology rather than psychology? Gluttony? Violence?

I think you are attempting to oversimplify the passage. Paul is saying that we all share in common the fallenness of sin. He’s not saying that concupiscence manifests itself identically in all people. At least I don’t see that in there anywhere.

Different kinds of concupiscence incline people towards different kinds of sins. Virtue is what we call it when we identify and practice ways of overcoming our particular forms of concupiscence./

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Dakota,

You have created in your mind things I do not have in my mind.

I insist. I requested.

How in the world you derive asking for a differentiation from heterosexual with same sex attraction vs gay implies anything but asking for what I believe is nomenclature, is your reading into it something I neither said or inferred.

I understand you believe that the population is growing and it appears you were not part of a dialogue about this another thread that disagrees with you. St. Augustine was in a land where the population grew to the point where the Hippo was over run by Arians…the message persisted elsewhere.

Concerning theology, it appears to me that you believe conversations must be restricted to theology. This is your rule and you are trying to impose it on me. Do you want people to impose rules on you as guides for discussion.

I agree that conversations may go here and there…if you spend some time studying my threads you will see that when it is appropriate I bring the conversation back to the Catechism, Encylicals or the Bible…for do you not know that we are called to be children of God…see what love the father in heaven has…so that the first born has made us fellow heirs…and if heirs then we celebrate that and you as my brother…in a very large family…we see the world differently and disagree.

By saying people with exclusive homosexual attractions are “heterosexuals with same sex attraction” you give them the “hope” that all of them can have the attractions go away and get attractions to the proper sex.

I’m talking about definitions, not concepts. If the Apostles used terms differently from the people they were trying to preach to they would not have been understood properly.

Thistle,

I am going to disagree with you.

People are born heterosexual. They may have same sex attraction.

The cause of this is not known although there are implications that environment and upbringing may be factors. We always have a choice to accept, reject or change behavior that was due to environment or upbringing.

Accepting the gay identity is a choice.

a “gay identity” is a choice, the attractions aren’t.

From Stanton Peele,PhD…The Truth about Addiction

Alcoholism itself isn’t genetic, there are however genes result in higher normal anxiety levels making them more likely to abuse substances to “cope”. Alcohol is simply the most available substance to abuse.

 

[CopticChristian]

By saying people with exclusive homosexual attractions are “heterosexuals with same sex attraction” you give them the “hope” that all of them can have the attractions go away and get attractions to the proper sex.

I’m talking about definitions, not concepts. If the Apostles used terms differently from the people they were trying to preach to they would not have been understood properly.

a “gay identity” is a choice, the attractions aren’t.

Alcoholism itself isn’t genetic, there are however genes result in higher normal anxiety levels making them more likely to abuse substances to “cope”. Alcohol is simply the most available substance to abuse.

Dakota,

Are you the one that designates who does and does not have hope?

How you get from “gay” to the Apostles is beyond me. You reach who you reach. I reach who I reach.

Identify studies that explain those genes and how they are relevant to this thread.