Can Homosexuality Be Proved Wrong From Natural Law

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I think the point about using comparisons to the animal kingdom is this…

The argument here is that homosexuality is wrong because it is not natural.

It is then pointed out ‘how can it not be natural when animals do it, and they don’t have the ability to be morally corrupted, so you can’t blame it on that’.

Then you argue that it doesn’t count, because humans have free will and morals to guide them.

Well, then that’s just contradicted your argument, because the basis of it was that it wasn’t natural…but now you’re saying that actually, it’s up to you to use morals to change the behaviour…well then, that’s going against nature. If you have to consciously use judgement to go against primal behaviours, then that’s what’s going against nature.
Have you read over what you have just posted^^^?

You have just put the dumb beasts of the earth on a higher spiritual plane than all of humanity!
I don’t know where you get YOUR notions from but most right-thinking people DO NOT use the animal instinct as any sort of yardstick of their “primal behaviours”.
IT ISN’T NATURAL FOR HUMANS to ACT LIKE ANIMALS! There was a comparison being made here NOT a connection.
We are endowed with the beautiful God-given gift of human sexuality. There was a distinction being made here, again NOT a connection.
Do you now get it???
 
This is a paranoiac opinion.
Catholics should reject opinion and understand truth as taught by the Teaching Authority of the Church.

I remember the Hippies: “You gotta be free man! Don’t listen to nobody! Just let it all hang out man.”

This has led to Radical Individualism. Only the individual decides. Social mores and customs are imposed and you are required to break free. Religion is worse!

Just because we have cars, TVs and cell phones, do you think anyone today has tried anything new that wasn’t tried 2,000 years ago? Homosexuality and various other things?

New ideas are just old ideas in different clothes and hairstyles. Man has not fundamentally changed.

God bless,
Ed
 
Catholics should reject opinion and understand truth as taught by the Teaching Authority of the Church.

I remember the Hippies: “You gotta be free man! Don’t listen to nobody! Just let it all hang out man.”

This has led to Radical Individualism. Only the individual decides. Social mores and customs are imposed and you are required to break free. Religion is worse!

Just because we have cars, TVs and cell phones, do you think anyone today has tried anything new that wasn’t tried 2,000 years ago? Homosexuality and various other things?

New ideas are just old ideas in different clothes and hairstyles. Man has not fundamentally changed.

God bless,
Ed
Jesus was a true radical individual. And then he was killed for it. Christians should not criticize “radical individualism.” Or you toss all the saints in the ash bin.

And, no, human nature has not changed much. But culture and justice and religions sure have. They have radically changed!
 
Indeed.

Our very existence is suffused with sensory and sensual stimulai, both pain and delights. Whole body eroticism, is, frankly, the best there is. I mean no disrespect to Catholics with this, but the moral requirement that ejaculation between a married couple be vaginal (or not at all, although sex without ejaculation is not supposed to occur either, not intentionally, anyway) is just plain ridiculous to me. It freaks me out that a religion would even wade into the matter in such a detailed, controlling way. But there it is!
Oh dear…
How can I put this VERY SIMPLY to you, sir?
Catholics the WORLD over ENJOY the fruits of their God-given sexuality. It is a PRECIOUS GIFT. Now, some abuse this gift, others are enthused, invigorated and grow this gift in their lives be they single or married.
The consequences of the abuse of this gift are sadly very familiar throughout the world.
The consequences of the true use of this gift is immeasurable joy.
The above two statements are delineated in several doctrines of the Church and in scripture also.
No authority ANYWHERE takes it upon itself to “wade into” this. They solemnly teach and people ENJOY the fruits of these life-affirming lessons.
Can I, in all honesty, appeal to you to STOP looking at everything the Catholic Church does through your eyes and bring a bit of learned wisdom to this debate.
Thank you.
 
Oh dear…
How can I put this VERY SIMPLY to you, sir?
Catholics the WORLD over ENJOY the fruits of their God-given sexuality. It is a PRECIOUS GIFT. Now, some abuse this gift, others are enthused, invigorated and grow this gift in their lives be they single or married.
How can single Catholics be involved in sexual activity or pleasure in ANY way?
The consequences of the abuse of this gift are sadly very familiar throughout the world.
Is oral sex to climax between a married couple one of these “abuses” that brings dire “consequences” to the “world”?
The consequences of the true use of this gift is immeasurable joy.
Good! I am glad that you are happy!
No authority ANYWHERE takes it upon itself to “wade into” this. They solemnly teach and people ENJOY the fruits of these life-affirming lessons.
I read the CCC on this. They are actually quite prescriptive of various sexual acts. Have you read it?
Can I, in all honesty, appeal to you to STOP looking at everything the Catholic Church does through your eyes and bring a bit of learned wisdom to this debate.
Are you just asking me to “be Catholic” about this? Even when you acknowledge that this is a “debate”? Which “learned wisdom” do I lack? This is a quite puzzling remark.
 
How can single Catholics be involved in sexual activity or pleasure in ANY way?

Is oral sex to climax between a married couple one of these “abuses” that brings dire “consequences” to the “world”?

Good! I am glad that you are happy!

I read the CCC on this. They are actually quite prescriptive of various sexual acts. Have you read it?

Are you just asking me to “be Catholic” about this? Even when you acknowledge that this is a “debate”? Which “learned wisdom” do I lack? This is a quite puzzling remark.
Human sexuality is a gift. You are obviously fixated on ONE aspect of this gift. Being single, like being married, is a blessing. If you move your mind out of the realm of sexual acts and into the sphere of a deep interconnected sense of sexuality, then perhaps you might appreciate the arguments Catholics on this thread have been vainly trying to convey to you.

Not only have I read it, sir, I fully understand and ENJOY its innate wisdom.

I wouldn’t presume to ask you to “be” anything. You seem to have your prejudices finely-tuned.

Its not a puzzling remark to those who have learned wisdom.

Its been sadly familiar trying to converse with you.
Bye.
 
larkin
*
Gays have already been given this civil right. The horse is out of the barn.

If you think that this is leading to incest or moral chaos, then sell all your holdings, give it to the poor. Shut off your internet, your tv, your radio, and devote yourself to saving your soul when the gay hordes enter your home and put your head on a pike. A rainbow-colored pike, that is.

I don’t treat slippery-slope worries about legal bestiality and incest with much more respect than mockery. Sorry.*

You blithely ignore the question. :rolleyes: If the homosexual marriage horse is out of the barn, are you prepared to justify that all the other horses should also be out of the barn?

Should there be a Constitutional right to:

Prostitution?

Incest?

Polygamy?

Yes or no?
 
larkin
*
Gays have already been given this civil right. The horse is out of the barn.

If you think that this is leading to incest or moral chaos, then sell all your holdings, give it to the poor. Shut off your internet, your tv, your radio, and devote yourself to saving your soul when the gay hordes enter your home and put your head on a pike. A rainbow-colored pike, that is.

I don’t treat slippery-slope worries about legal bestiality and incest with much more respect than mockery. Sorry.*

You blithely ignore the question. :rolleyes: If the homosexual marriage horse is out of the barn, are you prepared to justify that all the other horses should also be out of the barn?
No.

I don’t argue from “slippery slope,” and I don’t support those causes. There are other arguments against them. But you don’t argue for them either, so I won’t debate that with you (it would be an insincere debate on your part).
 
Human sexuality is a gift. You are obviously fixated on ONE aspect of this gift. Being single, like being married, is a blessing. If you move your mind out of the realm of sexual acts and into the sphere of a deep interconnected sense of sexuality…
What? I am simply asking what you meant by the gift of sexuality to a single Catholic person. Why don’t you explain this a little more. It might be very interesting!
I wouldn’t presume to ask you to “be” anything. You seem to have your prejudices finely-tuned.
That’s choice, from a dogmatic Catholic! That’s a hoot! Of course I have my prejudices! But watch out for that mote in your eye. It’s so big you might trip over it!
Its not a puzzling remark to those who have learned wisdom.
Its been sadly familiar trying to converse with you.
Bye.
Are you stomping off?

I was hoping to hear more about the gift of sexuality for Catholic singles.
 
Daedelus76
Moralism over things like masturbation just leads to insensitive sex lives…Roman Catholic’s Magisterial position sweeps those all [psychosocial purposes] aside in favor of a narrow sexual ethos…. I think social sciences and psychology are better for understanding human sexuality than the tomes of celibate theologians from the middle ages.
How naïve, that secular psychologists should be relied upon to teach the natural moral law and doctrine!
How naïve to feel that masturbation is good, when even the Ancient Egyptian Code of Hammurabi condemned it (22. Have you polluted yourself?)!

Feeling “Christian” as a catechumen has nothing to do with reason and faith when both are corrupted. It is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, who gave us the Magisterium. It is His Church with His authority that gave us the books of the Sacred Scriptures as the Word of God in which we find the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for homosexual activity and the reference by the Christ to just that – don’t you know? One of the chief immoralities is an indifference to truth – Christ says it is worse than the sexual perversion. Those who reject His teaching through His representatives are worse than the perverted Sodom and Gomorrah. (Mt 10:14-15).

As a faithful follower of Christ, St Paul specifically defines this mutual degradation among the Romans as the practice of homosexuality and stresses its unnatural character: Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. (Rom. 1:26-27). St Paul characterizes lesbian and homosexual activity as a heinous sin in Rom 1:26-32, “shameful”, from a “debased mind”, “error” as well as “against nature”. And some perversely persist in fantasising that no guilt is involved – “men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” (Rom 1:18).

What a blessed day it will be when the realisation dawns that playing “Magisterium” is not appreciated by Christ or St Paul.
 
I think the point about using comparisons to the animal kingdom is this…

The argument here is that homosexuality is wrong because it is not natural.

It is then pointed out ‘how can it not be natural when animals do it, and they don’t have the ability to be morally corrupted, so you can’t blame it on that’.

Then you argue that it doesn’t count, because humans have free will and morals to guide them.

Well, then that’s just contradicted your argument, because the basis of it was that it wasn’t natural…but now you’re saying that actually, it’s up to you to use morals to change the behaviour…well then, that’s going against nature. If you have to consciously use judgement to go against primal behaviours, then that’s what’s going against nature.

To address the actual mechanics of natural or not, as posed in an earlier post…

It was said that homosexuals can’t have intimate ‘face-to-face’ sex, a sort of way that showing the body isn’t designed for it. Well…not wishing to draw a diagram, but…yes they can.

Equally, I don’t want to go into too much detail here, but again in a previous post the workings of the vagina and penis an anus was gone into in great detail. A consideration…if anal penetration of any sort is so unnatural, then why is the ‘male g spot’ located in the anus? One of the single biggest pleasure spots for men. If you’re saying the body has been designed with precision and skill for heterosexual sex, this seems something of a design flaw.

But actually putting that aside, I don’t believe that the mechanics of body parts is actually the key to nature. After all, a man’s penis is not possessed and suddenly ceased with the need to seek out a woman or a man for that matter. It’s the attraction and yearning of the mind…and if a man has an attraction to another man, then it is nature.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the body was specifically designed for homosexuality…what I’m saying is I think that the body and mind is built for sexuality in general, homosexual, heterosexual, and every shade of grey inbetween.
Dear Michael,

Thankyou for your response above.

By way of reply let me say first that it is a misconception to talk of “primal behaviours” for it is more a matter of man’s innate sinfulness and homosexual aberrant acts being a sad effect of the Fall and Original Sin. However, to say that homosexual orientation and conduct are incontrovertible evidence that we live in a fallen world is not to retreat into a simplistic analysis, but contriwise it is to face up to man’s true plight and the reality of his fallen estate. The exact means by which sin exerts its unhappy effects upon societies and individuals is only in part discernible to us as sinful human beings. Now because homosexual deviant acts are contrary to God’s norm for human sexuality, the desire and temptation to to engage in them ought to be steadfastly resisted, not merely because they are unnatural and wrong (natural law), but more importantly because they are a violation of the moral law of God and an affront to His holiness. So it is not a question of having to go against nature, but more an issue of going against *sinful *nature, an entirely different matter altogether.

As far as homosexual genital acts themselves are concerned, it is manifestly obvious that the anus was not designed to be penetrated, in fact it is so obvious that even a bilnd man on a galloping horse could see it. Since the rectum is exceedingly fragile it was clearly not intended by the Creator to be pentetrated in the same manner as the vagina. Indeed, its fragility and tendency to tear and bleed is one factor making anal intercourse such an efficient means in transmitting the AIDS and hepatitus viruses. Moreover, the fact that male homosexuals are more prone to rectal cancer, almost non existent in male heterosexuals, is also clear and umistakeable evidence that something is seriously amiss with homosexual activity - is it any wonder that only 2% of homosexual men live beyond the age of sixty-five? The fact that condoms have to be worn to minimise the risk of infection only serves to underscore the very unnaturalness of the acts themselves.

Thus the common line of argument that homosexual deviant acts are perfectly harmless is unsustainable when one ponders the biological nature of the human body. A basic lesson in human anatomy will reveal the dangers inherent in the misuse/abuse of our sexual organs. This is to say nothing of the mental health problems, feelings of guilt and rejection, fits of depression, lonelliness, alcoholism, drug dependedncy and even thoughts of suicide, all of which are quite common in such unnatural and sinful liasons. All of this should flash up the warning cones, but alas, because of man’s innate sinfulness and his propensity to rebel against the good laws of His creator (natural and moral), it does not. However, sooner or later, those who persist in the homosexual lifestyle, flagrantly disobeying God’s laws, will receive “…in their own persons the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1: 27); “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6: 23). This may sound harsh, but it is, nevertheless, the voice of Sacred Scripture and Christians must not give an uncertain sound on the trumpet when it comes to issues that affect men’s eternal destinies, only a false notion and warped sense of charity would surely do such a thing.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait
 
This is a paranoiac opinion.
Dear larkin31,

Cordial greetings.

Sorry, but Ed’s comments cannot so easily be contemptously dismissed as “paranoiac opinion” for the Christian Faith really does encounter formidable hostility, not least in those developed Western countries that were once regarded as bulwarks of Christian civilisation. As Christians look around them they cannot but be aware of how powerful and insidious is the assault upon the Faith which they hold so dear; the Faith which has, indeed, been the very foundation of Western culture. Since the Enlightenment and the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, especially, when a whole tidal wave of immorality was unwelcomely foisted upon us via pop and rock music (have been discussing this in a recent thread), immodest fashions, ill-advised legislation decriminalising homosexuality and abortion and of course a spurious juvenile notion of freedom, there has been much cause for concern among all good Christian people. Moreover, these boards, and even this present thread, only serve to reinforce those concerns.

Current secualrist humanism - a mish-mash of relativistic notions negating traditional values and absolutes - infects the intellectual air that we breathe each day. There is a campaingn afoot to undermine all human acknowledgement of the transcendent and to whittle away all human respect for objective restraints on the individualistic self. The hold of this campaingn on the media is such that the masses are being sadly and ruthlessly brainwashed as they read the press, listen to the radio, watch tv or surf the internet. Only an ostrich with head deeply buried in the sand would seriously take issue with any of this analysis, thus our fears are not without any foundation but are firmly grounded in fact.

If being concerned about this decomposition of our culture and civilisation by the supposed foundations of fashionable liberal relativism is seen as paranoia, then sir we must plead proudly guilty as charged.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait
 
Dear larkin31,

Cordial greetings.

Sorry, but Ed’s comments cannot so easily be contemptously dismissed as “paranoiac opinion” for the Christian Faith really does encounter formidable hostility, not least in those developed Western countries that were once regarded as bulwarks of Christian civilisation. As Christians look around them they cannot but be aware of how powerful and insidious is the assault upon the Faith which they hold so dear; the Faith which has, indeed, been the very foundation of Western culture. Since the Enlightenment and the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, especially, when a whole tidal wave of immorality was unwelcomely foisted upon us via pop and rock music (have been discussing this in a recent thread), immodest fashions, ill-advised legislation decriminalising homosexuality and abortion and of course a spurious juvenile notion of freedom, there has been much cause for concern among all good Christian people. Moreover, these boards, and even this present thread, only serve to reinforce those concerns.

Current secualrist humanism - a mish-mash of relativistic notions negating traditional values and absolutes - infects the intellectual air that we breathe each day. There is a campaingn afoot to undermine all human acknowledgement of the transcendent and to whittle away all human respect for objective restraints on the individualistic self. The hold of this campaingn on the media is such that the masses are being sadly and ruthlessly brainwashed as they read the press, listen to the radio, watch tv or surf the internet. Only an ostrich with head deeply buried in the sand would seriously take issue with any of this analysis, thus our fears are not without any foundation but are firmly grounded in fact.

If being concerned about this decomposition of our culture and civilisation by the supposed foundations of fashionable liberal relativism is seen as paranoia, then sir we must plead proudly guilty as charged.
It is paranoiac, indeed. Our country is 80% theist, and Christians dominate those ranks.

And you rue the dropping of laws against homosexuality. Well, well.

Yes, our culture has loosened its grip on the public expression of sexuality, and some behaviors have changed. Freedom has its price. No one is making you, however, behave any differently.

But arresting and jailing gays?? Come on. It’s the 21st century now. Join it, or get left behind.
 
Dear Daedelus76,
Now it follows that to depart from this norm and engage in homosexual aberrant acts is clearly against the course of nature and hence, by definition, unnatural and wrong.
Eyeglasses are also deviating from “nature”. It may be in some cases deviating from nature is the humane thing to do. I think saying that God would seek to punish people for adapting to an imperfect world is a low, cruel view of God.

“Homosexual” acts exist in nature in animals.
To believe the unnaturalness of homosexual deviant acts is sufficient per se to condemn them because they manifestly are a violation of the natural order of our race, apart from any religious consideration. Moreover, as with auto-eroticism and birth-prevention, homosexual conduct is both wrong and unnatural because it involves the wasting of the procreative substance that should be directed towards the creation of a new life.
Ridiculous medievalism from outdated philosophy The “procreative substance” is wasted constantly, the male body naturally does that wheather one masturbates or not (and sometimes if it doesn’t, you get prostatitis, what is the church’s position on that, is that “God’s will”?).

If this is the best roman catholicism can do, give non-answers to serious questions… how do you expect the modern world to take you seriously?
 
I feel as if the point is being missed, specifically by Colmcille1…

This thread was started in an attempt to find an argument using natural law to persuade people who either don’t believe in God or don’t believe God really cares either way if people are homosexual. Ie. using logic and facts of nature and biology and science to construct an argument against homosexuality rather than using a spiritual argument.

So, if you’re using that…when someone says ‘here is a case in natural law, the animal kingdom displaying homosexual behaviour, and seeing as they aren’t guided by human conditioning or peer pressure, here is a perfect example of homosexuality in nature’, it completely goes against the motive of the original question in the thread to simply say ‘yeah, but they don’t have the gifts that God gave them to know better’. Because then it’s no longer an argument based on logic and natural law, it’s just gone back to ‘but God doesn’t like it’. Which has broken the point of the argument.

And I can assure you, if you were to do that in an argument with an atheist, they’d just shake their heads, because it’s proving that you can’t construct an argument based around science and fact without dropping back to the line ‘but God says’ when you don’t have a logical answer for something.

Now, if you want to believe homosexuality is wrong because of what the church teaches, that’s up to you. I don’t agree with it, but it’s up to you.

However, if you start a discussion based on trying to find a more factual nature based argument against it, specifically to use towards non believers, as set out in the original post, then you can’t keep bringing it back to spiritual matters of God. Because that won’t win an argument against an atheist, I can assure you. And I have yet to see any argument based on nature or logic or science on this thread that proves a) it is entirely unnatural and b) that even if it is unnatural, that unnatural means it’s wrong. As I said, human beings of the 21st century all live unnatural lives, it doesn’t make it wrong.

By the way, having said that, I know plenty of atheists who are homophobic, all men though who are simply scared of a threat to their own masculinity and aren’t confident enough in their own sexuality rather than it being about religion…but that’s a whoooole other discussion LOL
 
I feel as if the point is being missed, specifically by Colmcille1…

This thread was started in an attempt to find an argument using natural law to persuade people who either don’t believe in God or don’t believe God really cares either way if people are homosexual. Ie. using logic and facts of nature and biology and science to construct an argument against homosexuality rather than using a spiritual argument.

So, if you’re using that…when someone says ‘here is a case in natural law, the animal kingdom displaying homosexual behaviour, and seeing as they aren’t guided by human conditioning or peer pressure, here is a perfect example of homosexuality in nature’, it completely goes against the motive of the original question in the thread to simply say ‘yeah, but they don’t have the gifts that God gave them to know better’. Because then it’s no longer an argument based on logic and natural law, it’s just gone back to ‘but God doesn’t like it’. Which has broken the point of the argument.

And I can assure you, if you were to do that in an argument with an atheist, they’d just shake their heads, because it’s proving that you can’t construct an argument based around science and fact without dropping back to the line ‘but God says’ when you don’t have a logical answer for something.

Now, if you want to believe homosexuality is wrong because of what the church teaches, that’s up to you. I don’t agree with it, but it’s up to you.

However, if you start a discussion based on trying to find a more factual nature based argument against it, specifically to use towards non believers, as set out in the original post, then you can’t keep bringing it back to spiritual matters of God. Because that won’t win an argument against an atheist, I can assure you. And I have yet to see any argument based on nature or logic or science on this thread that proves a) it is entirely unnatural and b) that even if it is unnatural, that unnatural means it’s wrong. As I said, human beings of the 21st century all live unnatural lives, it doesn’t make it wrong.

By the way, having said that, I know plenty of atheists who are homophobic, all men though who are simply scared of a threat to their own masculinity and aren’t confident enough in their own sexuality rather than it being about religion…but that’s a whoooole other discussion LOL
very well put. Thank you for refering us back again to the origianl challenge: argument from natural law. And I could not agree with you more: in this thread, it has always come back to this kind of argument: “My God has his prophets in his central texts criticize homosexuality; therefore, it is against Natural Law.”

or “Men and women should only orgasm with the one member inside the other because that is how my God meant it to be because his prophets say so in my religious texts.”

or “Since humans are male and female, the only “natural” form of sexual interaction is across these two genders and never among them.”

The first two positions are based on faith, not logic. The last one is faulty logic because it is based on a faulty undisclosed premise: that the use of body parts is always morally determined by their primary biological purpose. In other words, secondary uses of body parts are not morally permissible. This is, of course, not true in many many cases.
 
So far this discussion has mainly been confined to reasons for why homosexuality should be against the natural law. What about the other side of the coin? What argument is there for regarding homosexual acts as consistent with human nature?

Is there only the argument we have heard so far?

That it gives pleasure and no one is harmed? (The latter claim is certainly open to challenge.)

Then what we are left with is that it gives pleasure?

What sexual pleasure does one get that one cannot get from a member of the opposite sex?
 
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