Can Homosexuality Be Proved Wrong From Natural Law

[Abu]

Another super post (#358), John21652.
As Laurie denies God and therefore human nature created by God, he makes his own selfist “ethics”.

He is unable to see the dignity of mankind versus animals as Dr Benjamin Wiker so clearly identifies:
“Well, just what are we? We are rational, moral animals—the only rational, moral animals. We are the one animal that must think even to survive, and the one animal whose actions are not governed by instincts but are judged by standards of good and evil. We don’t consider it cruel not to teach your dog to read, but we think that keeping children from getting an education deprives them of something they should have. We don’t jail rambunctious roosters for forcing themselves on beleaguered hens, but we send men to the slammer for rape.”
Dr Benjamin Wiker

VetA, spot on – see post #322:
Homosexual activity “lacks those very elements which could make it a natural sign of the union of persons. This is why the most that can be achieved in a homosexual act is mutual masturbation.” (Michael Palachuk, Why Is Homosexual Activity Morally Wrong? Referenced in The Truth About Homosexuality, Section: The Argument from Natural Law, Fr John A Harvey, Ignatius 1996, p 133-4).

Fr Harvey (Op. cit. p 134-138) shows that the act of homosexual intercourse lacks the two components that make sexual intercourse natural:

1. The gastrointestinal tract is a hole running through the body – oral or anal intercourse remains on the surface and is not inside the human being, whereas vaginal intercourse is about a real physical union.
2. Since the homosexual act cannot be procreative it cannot unify those engaged in it by tending toward a child who will have characteristics of both parents. Homosexual acts are ipso facto unnatural.

The homomaniacs will not to face reality.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

John,

You miss my point - obviously I did not put it very well.

The term ‘natural’ in everyday speech has a number of different meanings. Here are three:

1] Natural = Primitive - what people did before they were ‘civilised’. In this context driving a car is not natural.
2] Natural = What we want to do if we were unconstrained by morality. So sleeping with my neighbour’s wife is a natural thing.
3] Natural = Using part of the body in a way that frustrates its biological purpose. The Natural Law meaning of ‘natural’.

You and I and everyone think that unnatural acts in of types 1] and 2] are not necessarily wrong. It is fine to be ‘unnatural’ and have a car and it is right to be refuse the natural desire to sleep with my attractive neighbour.

My point is simple - I do not find it obvious that ‘unnatural’ acts = ‘against natural law’ are wrong either and need some reasoning to show it.

I hope I have made my point clear now

Laurie

 

[Abu]

Facing Reality
lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=10062510

Clinic Stats: 86% of all STD’s among 45+ Found in Swingers and Gay Men
June 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Swingers - straight couples who regularly swap sexual partners at organized gatherings and clubs and indulge in group sex - have rates of sexually transmitted infections comparable with those of recognized high risk groups such as gay men, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

More than half (55%) of all diagnoses in the over 45s were made in swingers, compared with around a third (31%) in gay men. One in 10 older swingers had Chlamydia and around one in 20 (4%) had gonorrhoea.

The findings are based on the numbers of patients seeking treatment in 2007 and 2008 at three sexual health clinics in South Limburg in the Netherlands.

These clinics, which serve a population of 630,000, have systematically recorded whether a patient is a swinger since the start of 2007, in a bid to track the infection rates among this group.

During the study period, there were just under 9,000 consultations at the three clinics. One in nine of the patients (12%) was a swinger, with an average age of 43.​

Hardly in keeping with reasonable and sane ideas of flourishing for mankind.

 

[John21652]

John,

You miss my point - obviously I did not put it very well.

The term ‘natural’ in everyday speech has a number of different meanings. Here are three:

1] Natural = Primitive - what people did before they were ‘civilised’. In this context driving a car is not natural.
2] Natural = What we want to do if we were unconstrained by morality. So sleeping with my neighbour’s wife is a natural thing.
3] Natural = Using part of the body in a way that frustrates its biological purpose. The Natural Law meaning of ‘natural’.

You and I and everyone think that unnatural acts in of types 1] and 2] are not necessarily wrong. It is fine to be ‘unnatural’ and have a car and it is right to be refuse the natural desire to sleep with my attractive neighbour.

My point is simple - I do not find it obvious that ‘unnatural’ acts = ‘against natural law’ are wrong either and need some reasoning to show it.

I hope I have made my point clear now

Laurie

Oh Laurie, you causeth me to tear my hair out.

Take point 1. Cars - transport. Way back before we were ‘civilized’, as you term it, mankind used dog sleds, snow shoes, rafts on rivers, wheels on implements. All were the result of mankind using his intellectual prowess to improve the efficiency of how he transported himself and his goods. Is any of this dveleopment unnatural? All of this development in transport and ambulatory methods improved mankinds’ lot. Weigh up the good versus the harm as you track through the changes.

Take point 2: Sleeping with your neighbor’s wife. I would suggest that it is unnatural for your neighbor to want to allow you to do such a thing. Way back before we were ‘civilized’, as you term it, you would very likely get a spear through the ribs. Now why is that? Laurie, it is because sleeping with your neighbor’s wife causes harm. Harm to the wife’s spouse, harm to the genetic certainty of procreation and uncertainty to the establishment of a stress and onflict free life. Sleeping with your neighbor’s wife eventually became enshrined into moral law as adultery, Laurie, because the act causes harm and is against the natural order of things. Sleeping with your neighbor’s wife is a disordered use of your sexual proclivities.

Point 3: Using parts of the body that frustrates its biological purpose. That phrasing is a simplification of the problem. After all, shaving off the hair on your head may frustrate the natural biological purpose of that hair. We need to measure the harm, of course. If someone dies from heat loss through the head because they have shaved off their hair, then shaving off that hair was clearly wrong! In terms of sexuality, the misuse of one’s sexual proclivities to engage in same sex sex is clearly a gross misuse of body parts that can cause harm. Anal sex, for example, leads to increased risks through faecal contamination, increased risks of the transmission of hepatitas, AIDS, weakening of the sphincter muscles leading to incontinence. It is a form of abuse. As I said in my previous post, our bodily design contradicts homosexuality.

Then, of course, we have the misplacement of human emotions. One man can love another, as I love my father and brothers. However, sexual attraction to someone of the same sex is not how the body is supposed to work. The norm is male-female sexual attractiveness. That is what drives the procreative desires. Same sex attraction frustrates this natural order of things and is disordered. The harm is not only from the potential spread of disease, but of a disordered society where same sex attraction is normalised. For the young and immature, it is easy for sexual confusion to cause an experiment which does them permanent harm.

Remeber, Natural Law is an holistic process and the workings of the individual desires must be placed into the context of a human society, which needs to function properly. Using Natural Law reasoning, homosexuality disorders the wider society. Hence its ‘wrongness’ on a broader scale.

Answer me this, Laurie.
Why is it that most men find homosexuality repugnant?

 

[DysonSphere]

Oh Laurie, you causeth me to tear my hair out.

Take point 1. Cars - transport. Way back before we were ‘civilized’, as you term it, mankind used dog sleds, snow shoes, rafts on rivers, wheels on implements. All were the result of mankind using his intellectual prowess to improve the efficiency of how he transported himself and his goods. Is any of this dveleopment unnatural?

I’d say it’s not unnatural, but certain environmentalists disagree. It seems to be a disagreement based on intuition and pure speculation.

So before we were ‘civilized’, we came up with all these diverse methods of travel. Diversifying travel is natural. Diversifying the way we express love? Diversifying sexual expression? Why are these not natural, except that they make you squeamish (which, by the way, is not by itself a good argument at all)?

Answer me this, Laurie.
Why is it that most men find homosexuality repugnant?

Is this even true? If it is, might the answer be a wide-spread bigotry?

 

[Abu]

John21652
Anal sex, for example, leads to increased risks through faecal contamination, increased risks of the transmission of hepatitas, AIDS, weakening of the sphincter muscles leading to incontinence. It is a form of abuse. As I said in my previous post, our bodily design contradicts homosexuality.

Spot on!

Facing Reality
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent
BRASILIA, June 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new study by Brazil’s Ministry of Health has revealed that in the 10 most populous cities of Brazil, the rate of HIV infection among homosexuals is over 10%.

According to the same agency, the overall rate of HIV infection among males between the ages of 15 and 49 years is only 0.8%, making the rate of HIV infection among adult homosexuals more than 13 times higher.

The study also found that homosexuals in large Brazilian cities are highly likely to be victims of rape. At least 14% have been forced to have sexual relations against their will.

Brazil has one of the most gay friendly governments in the world. Every year, Sao Paulo hosts the largest gay pride march on earth, which has in the past been financed by the government itself. The federal government, under President Luiz Lula da Silva, also runs a massive nationwide propaganda campaign called “Brazil Without Homophobia” and censors television to prohibit ministers from preaching against sodomy before 11 pm.

The statistics from Brazil are reflected by another recent study in Spain, which also found that one in 10 homosexuals are infected with HIV. In the United States, the relative HIV rate among active homosexuals is even higher. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, for Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), “for HIV and syphilis respectively, the rate was 60 and 61 times the rate for other men.”

According to numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies, homosexual behavior is also statistically associated with high rates of a variety of other communicable diseases and medical problems, as well as high rates of promiscuity, violence, depression, pathological behaviors, and suicide.

The Spanish government is using the one in 10 statistic to promote its ongoing campaign to convince homosexuals to use condoms, despite the fact that such campaigns have generally succeeded in increasing the rate of sexually transmitted diseases in countries afflicted with HIV.

The campaign is called “give yourself a medal,” and shows a man’s naked chest with a condom suspended from a ribbon of the style used for hanging medals around athletes’ necks.

 

[DysonSphere]

Anal sex, for example, leads to increased risks through faecal contamination, increased risks of the transmission of hepatitas, AIDS, weakening of the sphincter muscles leading to incontinence. It is a form of abuse.

I just thought of an interesting counter-example for this. Some weak counter-examples I was first thinking about were keyboards and violins. Both cause serious wrist problems over time. They involve using our wrists in ways we were never meant to use them.

Then the better example: smoking. It’s repugnant, people hate the smell, it causes all sorts of disease. It would seem, by this intuitive argument labeled “natural law” to be identically bad to anal sex. Yet I don’t know whether anyone would really consider smoking cigarettes “gravely immoral” or “deviant” or “against nature” (maybe the last one). Many Catholics, such as Chesterton even, would consider such arguments to be puritanical.

 

[Abu]

DysonSphere
smoking. It’s repugnant, people hate the smell, it causes all sorts of disease. It would seem, by this intuitive argument labeled “natural law” to be identically bad to anal sex.

Typically, an absolutely puerile analogy. Further you obviously know nothing about G K Chesterton and his impeccable logic. Smoking tobacco is many thousands of years old and produces pleasurable sensations in those who engage in it. As science developed with reason and faith through the Catholic Church the bad affects on health were eventually uncovered.

Such an analogy is totally removed from the natural moral law and the sexual design by the Creator for the procreation of mankind and the unity of man and wife, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for sodomy, the acknowledgement of the natural moral law among pagans, and the repeated condemnations of sodomy by St Paul.

As a Catholic GKC promoted Catholic doctrine and dogma which includes respect for the natural moral law. For both Malcolm Muggeridge and GKC “their common social philosophy was in the key areas of marriage and the family – the “life” issues, as we now call them. This extended to such unfashionable subjects as contraception, where the two men were remarkably in harmony, long before either became a Catholic, and for reasons of natural law rather than supernatural revelation.

“The modern world is full of old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.” (GKC in Orthodoxy).

ignatiusinsight.com/features/jpearce_intervw_july04.asp
Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray, shows that when you kill your conscience, you kill your soul. Wilde was such a religious man that when he enters the Church on his deathbed, it really is the logical end and culmination of his life.

 

[DysonSphere]

I fail to see a good argument you have presented, Abu, against using such an analogy. It seems that you have substituted “purile” for “insulting to me, a possible smoker of tobacco”. I also smoke tobacco. I enjoy pipe smoking very much. It’s not unnatural. Although, neither in my mind is homosexuality…

Further you obviously know nothing about G K Chesterton and his impeccable logic.

I think I know a bit about him and his logic. I hold him in high respect. While I admit that he would not have agreed with my argument (and likely would have offered something very witty and wise to rebuff me), I contend that his condemnation of homosexuality and contraception, as “life issues”, are based on reasons just as puritanical as the Puritans. If he followed his logic in this case as well as he did in many others, he’d have to either bend on the issues of homosexuality and contraception, or he’d have to surrender his tobacco.

Even the most logical people act illogically and think illogically, from time to time.

 

[momor]

The term ‘natural’ in everyday speech has a number of different meanings. Here are three:

1] Natural = Primitive - what people did before they were ‘civilised’. In this context driving a car is not natural.
2] Natural = What we want to do if we were unconstrained by morality. So sleeping with my neighbour’s wife is a natural thing.
3] Natural = Using part of the body in a way that frustrates its biological purpose. The Natural Law meaning of ‘natural’.

You and I and everyone think that unnatural acts in of types 1] and 2] are not necessarily wrong. It is fine to be ‘unnatural’ and have a car and it is right to be refuse the natural desire to sleep with my attractive neighbour.

My point is simple - I do not find it obvious that ‘unnatural’ acts = ‘against natural law’ are wrong either and need some reasoning to show it.

I hope I have made my point clear now

Laurie

I don’t get your distinction between 2 and 3. Both equate to following natural desires. I could also say that it is natural to want to strangle someone who offends us (even if only for a second). All are natural desires that are wrong if acted upon. Why do you try and make a noble exception for homosexuality?

Why do you think that people have to follow any ‘natural’ biological/sexual drive they possess? By that rationale, pedophilia should be allowed if that is someone’s ‘natural’ proclivity. In fact, that is where many would like to see us head. There is another thread on here right now talking about a school district in Massachusetts which authorized distributing condoms to children in kindergarten through 5th grade! That is a pedophile agenda. They know it will be overturned but that is how they work. After enough of these kinds of assaults on morality it becomes easier for people to accept lowering the age of consent to junior high, then on and on, lower and lower.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Oh dear Dyson and John - I am not making myself clear at all. You are both missing my point so obviously I am not explaining it well enough. Try again.

The term ‘unnatural’ is used in everyday speech in different ways. Here are three examples. Do not get hung up discussing if you agree with what is said in these examples just concentrate on the meaning of the term ‘natural’ in each.

1] “I am going to set up a goat farm in Wales and get back to nature and get away from the unnatural life of the city.”
2] “It was a natural reaction to hit him - he had just insulted my mother”.
3] “Gay sex is not natural because the natural aim of sex is reproduction”

Now I am sure you understand these three sentences. And further you will realise that the term ‘natural’ is being used in three different ways in them?

Just stop there chaps and let me ask you. Have I explained this clearly enough to you. So far I have not produced any arguments at all but just shown that the concept ‘natural’ is used in a number of different ways.

Now let me use this fact to make my point.
Take the first use of ‘natural’ = roughly ‘that which contrasts with complicated city life’. Let us call this Natural [in green] Now let us consider the third use of natural = goes against the natural function of the act. Call this **Natural [in red]**Now the very simple point that I am making is that it makes perfect sense to say of something 'it is Unnatural but is it wrong? [So for example, owning a car is [COLOR=“darkgreen”]unnatural but not wrong.] We both surely agree on that!

All I am adding is that for me the question, ‘It is Unnatural but why does that make it wrong?’ also requires an answer. It just is not obvious to me that this type of unnatural HAS to be wrong either. And I am inviting you to tell me why it is so.

Hope that is clear and you can go on to my question.

Regards

Laurie

 

[Abu]

DysonSphere
Smoking….would seem, by this intuitive argument labeled “natural law” to be identically bad to anal sex.

A puerile analogy – further degraded by your feeling that the natural moral law is known by “intuition” which is a “hunch” a “suspicion”, rather than reason and observation.

That’s precisely why the opponents of the natural moral law can never achieve any reasonable “ethics” from their selfist systems – because they all are contrary to reason and observation which are part of our nature created by God, and confirmed by Christ’s Church which built Western civilization, including science, on reason, observation and faith.

As soon as the self-evident God is acknowledged, the Creator of the natural moral law, it self-evidently follows that to deviate from that law known by reason, cause and effect, is to act as such wrongly, known and identified from pagan times, long before Christ.Since there is nothing ‘natural’ about homosexual activity it is a disorder.

It’s quite straightforward – the natural moral law is part of our God-given nature, understood through reason, and is a part of conscience. Reason associated with wanting to do good and avoid evil impels mankind to seek cause and effect in harmony with the natural moral law. A refusal to acknowledge God and God’s natural moral law results in a morass of self-serving pleasure. The act of sex between homosexuals is wrong because their act can never result in children. Also they have no right over the bodies of each other. In this last condition they are similar to adulterers and fornicators.

 

[John21652]

Oh dear Dyson and John - I am not making myself clear at all. You are both missing my point so obviously I am not explaining it well enough. Try again.

The term ‘unnatural’ is used in everyday speech in different ways. Here are three examples. Do not get hung up discussing if you agree with what is said in these examples just concentrate on the meaning of the term ‘natural’ in each.

1] “I am going to set up a goat farm in Wales and get back to nature and get away from the unnatural life of the city.”
2] “It was a natural reaction to hit him - he had just insulted my mother”.
3] “Gay sex is not natural because the natural aim of sex is reproduction”

Now I am sure you understand these three sentences. And further you will realise that the term ‘natural’ is being used in three different ways in them?

Just stop there chaps and let me ask you. Have I explained this clearly enough to you. So far I have not produced any arguments at all but just shown that the concept ‘natural’ is used in a number of different ways.

Now let me use this fact to make my point.
Take the first use of ‘natural’ = roughly ‘that which contrasts with complicated city life’. Let us call this Natural [in green] Now let us consider the third use of natural = goes against the natural function of the act. Call this **Natural [in red]**Now the very simple point that I am making is that it makes perfect sense to say of something 'it is Unnatural but is it wrong? [So for example, owning a car is unnatural

but not wrong.] We both surely agree on that!

All I am adding is that for me the question, ‘It is Unnatural but why does that make it wrong?’ also requires an answer. It just is not obvious to me that this type of unnatural HAS to be wrong either. And I am inviting you to tell me why it is so.

Hope that is clear and you can go on to my question.

Regards

Laurie
Laurie, you can use all the colours of the rainbow to categorise ‘unnatural’, but the trouble is, ‘unnatural’ is the wrong adjective and the problem we have here is that you are focusing on its use. We could argue bungy jumping is ‘unnatural’, the same for parachute jumping and water skiing. Then again, we could say its the natural order of things that causes mankind to want to experience a bit of adventure and have an adrenalin rush. WE could argue about all sorts of human activities and give each one of then a classification by colour in the process.

The word ‘unnatural’ needs to be coupled with the word ‘disordered’ in order to make sense of Natural Law morality and its classification of certain human activities as being ‘wrong’. I have used the word 'disordered throughout my posts and yet you fixate on the word ‘unnatural’.

Bare in mind that Natural Law sees order in the world. The world works according to an observable set of fairly predictable behaviours. Trees grow when there is air, water and light. So too do flowers. Lions breed and multiply when there is an abundance of food. There are four seasons. Mankind has a place in all of this. However, as a mentally independent, conscious driven being, mankind has a need to be aware of its place in this ordered creation (I’m not bringing God into it here. Creation for the sake of this argument can be Big Bang Theory, God, or pure chance. Take your pick) because mankind can have such a immense negative or positive impact on the natural order of things. Similarly, for humanity to prosper it needs a moral code, to foster its proper development, part of which is a sense of cooperation and part of which is a natural ‘fit’ into the order of things. Therefore, humanity must act according to its natural proclivities, but constarined and ordered by a morality, a moral code. Natural Law adopts its moral code from the observable predictability, the ‘rightness’, of ordered creation, using the mental faculties, particularly deduction, in the process. We deduce what is right and wrong from the context of the Natural Order of things. I just used two pertinant words here Laurie. The first is ‘Natural’, the converse of which is ‘Unnatural’, and the second is ‘Order’, the converse of which is "Disorder’. We make a big mistake in this debate if we just focus on the one word "order’ and its converse, ‘unnatural’. We need to focus on both and debate ‘unnatural’ alongside ‘disordered’.

So, instead of saying something is **Unnatural **and debating the rightness or wrongness of it, we should be discussing Unnatural + Disorder. The colours of both words, that is, their classification, will change and that way we will see that some unnatural acts are not disordered and others will be. When we get unnatural and disordered side by side, the same colour, then we can have a final moral judgement.

So, here’s my clasification of Homosexual sex - Unnatural and Disordered for the resons already given.

Laurie, here’s an analogy. That goat farm you are going to set up in Wales. If the Billy’s and Nannies and even the Kids start up homosexual sex, what are you going to do? Accept it as ‘normal’? Tell us its just another expression of goat love?
Try explaining that to your bank manager, whom, I expect, would want to see an increase in goat numbers!!

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

OK John,

So I am asking why as gay sex is unnatural [as defined by you] it is also wrong. You reply because it is also disordered.

Fine here is my question rephrased.

Gay sex is unnatural [as defined by you] and it is also disordered [again as defined by you] but why do these two things make it wrong?

I look forward to hearing your answer because so far you have just described the unnaturalness/disorder not explained why it is wrong.

To be fair - you do argue that we need to behave naturally [as defined by you] in order to flourish - but that is patently not the case for many gay people. Hence the moral problem we are debating.

Thanks

Laurie

PS The goat question is beside the point. If I was keeping goats to breed I would get rid of the gay ones of course but not because they were wicked immoral goats! If they were lam I would have to do the same - hardly makes it right to kill of disabled humans though!

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

For John,

A very strange story and its moral

A long time ago I had one of the first mobile phones. But I dropped it and it became ‘disordered’ and would not function as a phone anymore. But, very oddly, it now made sweet music because it behaved like a CD player! This pleased me greatly as I had another mobile but no CD player.

Here is the moral. My daughter is ‘disordered’ because she is gay but she makes sweet music with her partner of 20 years, so I do not mind a bit! I have lots of straight relatives so a gay daughter I welcome.

So I am not convinced that if something is disordered and unnatural as defined by you - it is necessarily wrong.

[On another point, of course I think people need a morality - I just have yet to be convinced that Natural Law provides it]

Laurie

 

[John21652]

OK John,

So I am asking why as gay sex is unnatural [as defined by you] it is also wrong. You reply because it is also disordered.

No Laurie, it is not defined by me. It is defined as such (unnatural and disordered) by the Natural Law.

Fine here is my question rephrased.

Gay sex is unnatural [as defined by you] and it is also disordered [again as defined by you] but why do these two things make it wrong?

Under Natural Law, human actions are right that promote the values specified by the natural inclinations of human beings and wrong as they do otherwise.
Procreation is one such value. It is a natural human inclination. Homosexuality shuts the door on this value. Deliberately, unquivocally. You can’t even suggest that homosexual sex means that childnessness is an unintended consequence. Homosexuality is a direct and deliberate violation of a basic human value and therefore, according to Natural Law morality it is wrong. Motives play a part in Natural Law moral evaluations and if same sex partners deliberately engage in a non-procreative partnership, then morally, they are doing wrong.

I look forward to hearing your answer because so far you have just described the unnaturalness/disorder not explained why it is wrong.

Hope the above helps.

To be fair - you do argue that we need to behave naturally [as defined by you] in order to flourish - but that is patently not the case for many gay people. Hence the moral problem we are debating.

Again, not as defined by me laurie, but by the Natural Law. Your use of the term ‘flourish’ is problematic. Flourish can be defined in many ways. Getting fat and healthy may be one desription of flourishing. Thriving is probably the definition you would enjoy the most here. Thriving requires happiness. However, I wonder just how happy homosexuals really are. They are ‘different’ to the norm. They know and understand their difference and that’s the reason so many are socially and politically aggressive, as they try to assert and normalize their difference. I wonder how many of them are happy being childless. Quite a few, judging from the push to legalise same sex couples adoption. I wonder how many of them are happy knowing that their sexual proclivities leads to disease and demeaning physical problems.

What is the Natural Law standard of right here? It is human nature. Observed human nature, that is, the norm, includes the desires and need to procreate and to be healthy as well as happy. These inclinations are common across the vast majority of human beings and so are normal proclivities.

So, Laurie, this is where the wrongness of homosexuality is obtained

PS The goat question is beside the point. If I was keeping goats to breed I would get rid of the gay ones of course but not because they were wicked immoral goats! If they were lam I would have to do the same - hardly makes it right to kill of disabled humans though!

If your goats were lame, Laurie, it would be morally incumbent upon you to treat their lameness, not simply to ‘get rid of them’. Jumping from lame goats to disabled humans is quite a leap in logic, Laurie!

As for the homosexsual goats, if you, the farmer, decrees that same sex goats will have bad outcomes for your goat enterprise, then you, the farmer, have set a moral standard, a prescriptive standard, by which the behaviour of the goats can be judged. Goats that behave outside your prescribed norm are bad and so must go. If not, then your bank manager will be after you double quickly and asking you why you tolerate unnatural and disordered behaviours on your goat farm! Even if your individual homosexual goats appear to be ‘flourishing’, your goat enterprise will not be. I’m sure the bank figures as supplied by your apoplectic bank manager would show this.

 

[momor]

As for the homosexsual goats, if you, the farmer, decrees that same sex goats will have bad outcomes for your goat enterprise, then you, the farmer, have set a moral standard, a prescriptive standard, by which the behaviour of the goats can be judged. Goats that behave outside your prescribed norm are bad and so must go. If not, then your bank manager will be after you double quickly and asking you why you tolerate unnatural and disordered behaviours on your goat farm! Even if your individual homosexual goats appear to be ‘flourishing’, your goat enterprise will not be. I’m sure the bank figures as supplied by your apoplectic bank manager would show this.

And those disordered goats can still be very sweet and useful creatures. It’s hard to see the necessary order of things required for the entire farm operation when you are looking into the eyes of only one sweet goat.

 

[DysonSphere]

Your position makes sense. I just disagree with your premise (that homosexual activity is in a meaningful sense unnatural).

Oh dear Dyson and John - I am not making myself clear at all. You are both missing my point so obviously I am not explaining it well enough. Try again.

The term ‘unnatural’ is used in everyday speech in different ways. Here are three examples. Do not get hung up discussing if you agree with what is said in these examples just concentrate on the meaning of the term ‘natural’ in each.

1] “I am going to set up a goat farm in Wales and get back to nature and get away from the unnatural life of the city.”
2] “It was a natural reaction to hit him - he had just insulted my mother”.
3] “Gay sex is not natural because the natural aim of sex is reproduction”

Now I am sure you understand these three sentences. And further you will realise that the term ‘natural’ is being used in three different ways in them?

Just stop there chaps and let me ask you. Have I explained this clearly enough to you. So far I have not produced any arguments at all but just shown that the concept ‘natural’ is used in a number of different ways.

Now let me use this fact to make my point.
Take the first use of ‘natural’ = roughly ‘that which contrasts with complicated city life’. Let us call this Natural [in green] Now let us consider the third use of natural = goes against the natural function of the act. Call this **Natural [in red]**Now the very simple point that I am making is that it makes perfect sense to say of something 'it is Unnatural but is it wrong? [So for example, owning a car is [COLOR=“darkgreen”]unnatural

but not wrong.] We both surely agree on that!

All I am adding is that for me the question, ‘It is Unnatural but why does that make it wrong?’ also requires an answer. It just is not obvious to me that this type of unnatural HAS to be wrong either. And I am inviting you to tell me why it is so.

Hope that is clear and you can go on to my question.

Regards

Laurie

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

John –thanks for reply.

Under Natural Law, human actions are right that promote the values specified by the natural inclinations of human beings and wrong as they do otherwise.
Procreation is one such value. It is a natural human inclination. Homosexuality shuts the door on this value. Deliberately, unquivocally.
But 1] We are discussing the justification of Natural Law morality.
2] Celibate people also ‘shut the door to this value’. [you will now reply with a ‘Yes but…’ which will not persuade any but the committed.]
3] Gay people can procreate in various ways – but you will again reply ‘Yes but…’

To answer the rest of your post. The problem arises for me because my daughter and partner have been in a stable faithful relationship for 20 + years and, by all ordinary standards are very happy and fulfilled by it. There are many other couples who are the same. So it is just not persuasive for you to assert that their lives are not flourishing, thriving, [chose your own words]. No doubt leading a straight life works for most people however for many gays it would mean a life which was arid and loveless. So to say that Natural Law Ethics is justified because it leads to everyone leading thriving lives is not correct for them – hence the problem.

It is beside the point to claim that many gays are promiscuous or whatever – we are talking about those who are in stable and happy relationships and who cannot be tarred with this brush.

So back to my question – if something is unnatural or disordered [as defined by Natural Law ethics and the Catholic Church], why is it also wrong?

D/S – enjoying your posts
Gay sex is unnatural using the term as defined by Natural Law morality. However the point that needs proving is. ‘given it is unnatural, why is it also wrong?’. [No convincing answer so far]

Laurie

 

[djeter]

The problem arises for me because my daughter and partner have been in a stable faithful relationship for 20 + years and, by all ordinary standards are very happy and fulfilled by it. There are many other couples who are the same. So it is just not persuasive for you to assert that their lives are not flourishing, thriving, [chose your own words]. No doubt leading a straight life works for most people however for many gays it would mean a life which was arid and loveless. So to say that Natural Law Ethics is justified because it leads to everyone leading thriving lives is not correct for them – hence the problem…

Gay sex is unnatural using the term as defined by Natural Law morality. However the point that needs proving is. ‘given it is unnatural, why is it also wrong?’. [No convincing answer so far]

Laurie

Laurie

If persistence won arguments you would be a winner hands down. Unfortunately several folks here have pointed out why violations of natural or divine law are “wrong” and you blithely pass by replying “that’s just your assertions” etc etc and repeat yourself.

You further appear not to understand the concept of sin or the notion that the human being is an embodied soul and what one does on earth can cause irreparable damage to that immortal soul. It can be lost. Jesus’ ministry on earth was to warn us of the wages of sin and call us to a metanoia or repentance.

Not to be gripped during life by material desires or homosexual urges are a mark of human virtue; it’s about responding to the One who has created and redeemed us, and who loves us with a love stronger than death, a love that desires to raise us from the dead. As we turn to God in conversion or in a deeper awakening, besides turning away from deliberate sin – which deforms the soul, blocks the relationship and offends the Person who has sacrificed His life for us – we need to positively build the relationship by paying attention to the One who loves us.

What is the point of having a discussion if you don’t accept these fundamental teachings of the faith? Never mind that you are positing the “happy healthy and gay” lifestyle that we both know doesn’t exist. You can put that next to “young, successful and black.” No one sells the latter but Homosexualists work overtime blaming all their problems on homophobes in the woodwork while claiming the former. There’s not a shred of proof or evidence in anything you say (tons to the contrary), just that anecdotal couple you cite from time to time, faithful to each other and flourishing in a hot tub in California somewhere.

So what are you trying to prove here? You expect to be convinced, persuaded? Really? Why? And of what? I think I would have had a better chance placing Mussolini’s name in nomination at the 1940 Republican convention. I don’t get any of this…You’ve lost me.

dj