Can Homosexuality Be Proved Wrong From Natural Law

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MindOverMatter2 said:
In reality you use natural law all the time. When one believes that human nature ought to be valued, you are saying that the proper end of human nature is as such that it ought to be valued.
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No I don’t. I think the notion of a Human Nature to which we are obligated to conform is something that ought to be de-valued. A description of the way things are can’t tell us how things ought to be. No one has figured out how to form a syllogism of the form “X is true therefore Y ought to be true.”

Regardless of what nature is like right now, I think we ought to try to be more than we now are and more than we ever were. I don’t think that we are limited by Nature or have a duty to Nature. Our duty is to ourselves and to one another to make the world better. Who knows how much better it can be? I see no reasons to try to impose limits on what we can make of ourselves in trying to nail down Human Nature. Humanity is not some fixed essence but rather a promising project. The project is not to fulfill our Nature but to continually redefine humanity as something better than it was before. I don’t expect the future to conform to a plan, but rather I hope the future will astonish us. With luck it will be unimagineably better than the present. If we think we already have a handle on perfection, we lose the hope for new and unimaginable possibilities for human community. In thinking that you can stand outside of time and culture to say what humanity simply is, I think you are not only wrong but running a terrible risk of putting undue limits on the future.

Best,
Leela
 
edwest2 said:
Change, for some, has become a form of worship – an idol. In reality, it is just an attempt to escape boredom for some, and/or a chance to play (small g) god. “You can’t tell me what to do!” Fine. But don’t ask us to make gay marriage legal. Don’t put it on the ballot.
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No one is asking you to get gay-married.
 
Leela said:
No one is asking you to get gay-married.
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I’m with you, I think, on this one. And not for Natural Law reasons.

I see marriage as a sacrament instituted by God between a man and a woman.

Because of this, I see gay marriage as a theological impossibility. God wouldn’t bless it, so it wouldn’t happen. But that’s my faith, and in America at least, my faith shouldn’t be made the law.

What would make me happiest is if the State would get out of the business of marriage, and leave the definition up to whatever faith community wants to define it. They should also get rid of all legal and tax breaks for marriage, and re-establish these through civil contracts. Civil contracts should also establish who gets to raise children, and who has the power to force them to go to school.
 
Abu said:
So true!

The problem today is that many think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices (William James), fail to recognise a Creator who has given us the natural moral law with the human nature, despite St Paul’s emphasis on this, but deceive themselves into feeling (can’t call it thinking) that they can make up their own moral law – aptly described as selfism by convert psychologist Dr Paul Vitz in Psychology As Religion, Eerdmans, 1994.
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It is true that many of us do not recognize such a creator, but that doesn’t render morality meaningless. It just means that instead of trying to conform to a pre-ordained human nature many of us see morality as the way we talk about our concerns for the well-being of conscious creatures. (I would hope that everyone is concerned about the well-being of humans!) The moral obligations and prohibitions we take from our reasoning about our concerns for others is not just “made up.” It isn’t just whatever we want it to be. It is contrained by the fact some some things really do contribute to well-being and some things really do cause suffering.

Best,
Leela
 
Leela said:
Regardless of what nature is like right now, I think we ought to try to be more than we now are and more than we ever were. I don’t think that we are limited by Nature or have a duty to Nature. Our duty is to ourselves and to one another to make the world better. Who knows how much better it can be? I see no reasons to try to impose limits on what we can make of ourselves in trying to nail down Human Nature. Humanity is not some fixed essence but rather a promising project. The project is not to fulfill our Nature but to continually redefine humanity as something better than it was before. I don’t expect the future to conform to a plan, but rather I hope the future will astonish us. With luck it will be unimagineably better than the present. If we think we already have a handle on perfection, we lose the hope for new and unimaginable possibilities for human community. In thinking that you can stand outside of time and culture to say what humanity simply is, I think you are not only wrong but running a terrible risk of putting undue limits on the future.

Best,
Leela
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This doesn’t tell me anything more than the fact that you wish to be your own God.
 
Paul_Rimmer said:
Just a note on the “coffee cup” analogy.

A misunderstanding about natural law is its highly relative nature. Natural law deals with the good of the individual or group, in terms of its designed purpose, and whether it tends toward that purpose.

For example, the purpose of a bacterium is to replicate. Its replication is its good, and actions that help its replication are good actions for the bacterium, regardless of the consequences to other species. Survival is a good for the human animal, and preserving that good may involve destroying bacteria.

When we talk about inanimate objects, or organisms with vegetative or animal souls, we just talk about “the good” in terms of fulfilling purposes. Failure to achieve such a good, relative to the organism or object, is at most a physical evil.

It takes a rational or spiritual soul (more specifically, intellect and will) in order for the good (and what interferes with that good) to have a moral, not just a physical, quality to it.
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This is a good example of that old Scholastic Dictum: when you reach a contradiction, make a distinction. It shows you just how easy it is to have a self-consistent theological or philosphical system. That’s why there are so many of them. So much for systems.
 
Leela said:
This is a good example of that old Scholastic Dictum: when you reach a contradiction, make a distinction. It shows you just how easy it is to have a self-consistent theological or philosphical system. That’s why there are so many of them. So much for systems.
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Not much of an answer, Leela, if it was even meant to be one. More of an ejaculation.

From the pragmatic standpoint, though, natural law works quite well. I’ve determined it in my own life and my wife and I have for our child, and I’ve been doing quite well in the world, and am generally very happy. I’m also very productive, more so because I have a good basis to actually determine what “productive” should mean.
 
Leela said:
No I don’t. I think the notion of a Human Nature to which we are obligated to conform is something that ought to be de-valued. A description of the way things are can’t tell us how things ought to be. No one has figured out how to form a syllogism of the form “X is true therefore Y ought to be true.”

Regardless of what nature is like right now, I think we ought to try to be more than we now are and more than we ever were. I don’t think that we are limited by Nature or have a duty to Nature. Our duty is to ourselves and to one another to make the world better. Who knows how much better it can be? I see no reasons to try to impose limits on what we can make of ourselves in trying to nail down Human Nature. Humanity is not some fixed essence but rather a promising project. The project is not to fulfill our Nature but to continually redefine humanity as something better than it was before. I don’t expect the future to conform to a plan, but rather I hope the future will astonish us. With luck it will be unimagineably better than the present. If we think we already have a handle on perfection, we lose the hope for new and unimaginable possibilities for human community. In thinking that you can stand outside of time and culture to say what humanity simply is, I think you are not only wrong but running a terrible risk of putting undue limits on the future.

Best,
Leela
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“undue limits on the future”? What limits? I study the history of technology. I know the history of invention and innovation. There is no magic formula. Right now, the future is being bought and paid for by the military and industry. Our brightest minds are tasked with destroying people and objects at the greatest speed for the least cost. Industry is only concerned about profits with safety a close second. That is who is shaping the future.

Unimaginable possibilities? The men with money, the billionnaires, are involved in the occasional project to solve the occasional problem. What would be unimaginably better would be to lift up the poor, so that an elderly black woman in Louisiana doesn’t have to gather wood, and start a fire to boil some water so she can wash her clothes.

Redefining being human is an idea without merit. The wisdom passed down to us over the ages stands as a testimony to the worst and best of what man can be - there’s only one problem: we refuse to learn from it.

The future is being planned right now. An elite few get to decide.

God bless,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
“undue limits on the future”? What limits? I study the history of technology. I know the history of invention and innovation. There is no magic formula. Right now, the future is being bought and paid for by the military and industry. Our brightest minds are tasked with destroying people and objects at the greatest speed for the least cost. Industry is only concerned about profits with safety a close second. That is who is shaping the future.

Unimaginable possibilities? The men with money, the billionnaires, are involved in the occasional project to solve the occasional problem. What would be unimaginably better would be to lift up the poor, so that an elderly black woman in Louisiana doesn’t have to gather wood, and start a fire to boil some water so she can wash her clothes.

Redefining being human is an idea without merit. The wisdom passed down to us over the ages stands as a testimony to the worst and best of what man can be - there’s only one problem: we refuse to learn from it.

The future is being planned right now. An elite few get to decide.

God bless,
Ed
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👍
 
Paul_Rimmer said:
I’m with you, I think, on this one. And not for Natural Law reasons.

I see marriage as a sacrament instituted by God between a man and a woman.

Because of this, I see gay marriage as a theological impossibility. God wouldn’t bless it, so it wouldn’t happen. But that’s my faith, and in America at least, my faith shouldn’t be made the law.

What would make me happiest is if the State would get out of the business of marriage, and leave the definition up to whatever faith community wants to define it. They should also get rid of all legal and tax breaks for marriage, and re-establish these through civil contracts. Civil contracts should also establish who gets to raise children, and who has the power to force them to go to school.
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Much of this is already done by states. This is our federal system. There are also some checks on the range of state laws (they can’t do just ANYTHING…).
 
Leela

I* think the notion of a Human Nature to which we are obligated to conform is something that ought to be de-valued. A description of the way things are can’t tell us how things ought to be.*

This is a curious statement, but I see why you adopt it because it furthers the homosexual agenda.

The penis is designed for the vagina, not the rectum. That is the way things are. So you are saying we should not say “The penis ought not to be used in the rectum.”

Likewise:

The medical profession was designed to save lives, including the lives of babies in the womb. That is the way things are. But you are saying, “Doctors should not be told they ought not to kill babies in the womb.”

Whew! :rolleyes:
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Leela

I* think the notion of a Human Nature to which we are obligated to conform is something that ought to be de-valued. A description of the way things are can’t tell us how things ought to be*.

This is a curious statement, but I see why you adopt it because it furthers the homosexual agenda.

The penis is designed for the vagina, not the rectum. That is the way things are. So you are saying we should not say “The penis ought not to be used in the rectum.”

Likewise:

The medical profession was designed to save lives, including the lives of babies in the womb. That is the way things are. But you are saying, “Doctors should not be told they ought not to kill babies in the womb.”

Whew! :rolleyes:
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Why are genitals not allowed pleasurable “purpose” beyond one form of sex, but the mouth is? The ears are. The eyes are. The skin is. Etc.
 
larkin

*Why are genitals not allowed pleasurable “purpose” beyond one form of sex, but the mouth is? The ears are. The eyes are. The skin is. Etc. *

Look, if you don’t believe me, ask a physician. The penis was not designed for the rectum, and can do harm to the rectum.!
 
larkin31 said:
we desire this in promotion of the human values of freedom and justice.
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What is justice and freedom in terms of objective truth? Sounds like something you made up. And now you wish to dictate it to people.
 
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