Can Homosexuality Be Proved Wrong From Natural Law

[colmcille1]

You can’t gain wisdom from books. Any book. Because wisdom is something that comes to people through experience. I never said that books, religious or not, did not have wisdom in them. But you can’t truly learn wisdom from books, it is something that you have to experience and feel, as well as understand. And I know the history of Christianity. I did go to school, you know. And college.

And are you saying that all non-believers are the same? That they should all be cast under this name you have made for them, in replacement of names that would be against regulations to post here? We do know what you mean by posting them; calling a spade by another name still makes it a spade. Or in this case…well…we can guess what you’d call someone who did not believe what you do.

I believe God created homosexuality. Why wouldn’t He? He created everything else. He created man in His own image…including the gays.

And by “true homosexuality” I mean the emotions that go with it. There’s some people who act gay but aren’t, or who experiment because it is cool but were never gay. And there are those who are born gay and…well, it lasts forever.

And the animal kingdom argument wasn’t blown out of anything. Because this thread is about the natural law, it is only natural to include the animals. And I do read the posts…half the time with a groan of pure disbelief, which I am sure you do as well when you read.

For the “dunno” stuff, see my earlier post.
(Interestingly, I seem to have touched on something that could potentially be very interesting viz does NON-BELIEVERS ostensible oversensitivity to collective titles betray an innate weakness in their arguments: they viewl stronger philosophical debate as personal slight? I was amused no end by what the poster dubbed me!)

And please spare me the “emotions” line; as if feelings alone were a valid criterion of adherence to any philosophical or moral viewpoint. And whatever else you claim that homosexuality is, you cannot seriously suggest that it encompasses a philosophical or moral spectrum.

And I said that God did not create homosexuality. (Are you sure you read the posts closely?) Do I really have to point out to you that homosexuality is a human(thogh deeply flawed) concept. Non-believers created it as they were equipped with free will like the rest of humanity. Alas, the non-believers don’t recognise that free will is God-given.
And your reference to God and condemnation doesen’t merit a response.

Please read over the animal kingdom posts. I have and its crystal clear even to an old fool like me!

 

[Leela]

I appreciate where you are coming from just as honestly as I can dismiss your presumption that I have other names in mind.

I was referring to your statement “I decided that “DUNNO” was the kindest epithet” presumably the kindest as compared to others you had in mind.

Be that as it may, I seem to have hit a nerve here. Are dunnos (oh, sorry, eh…non-believers) extra-ensitive to innocuous titles?

I have no idea what you mean by “DUNNOS.” I only took offense because you indicated that you intended it to be offensive (i.e. as an epithet).

And at the risk of sounding pedantic, would it be too much to ask that you put the same request to your fellow-dun…eh, non-believer? If you’ve been reading closely, you’ll know to whom I refer.

I don’t know what you mean, but I am opposed to displays of bigotry from nonChristians as well as Christians.

 

[colmcille1]

I was referring to your statement “I decided that “DUNNO” was the kindest epithet” presumably the kindest as compared to others you had in mind.

I have no idea what you mean by “DUNNOS.” I only took offense because you indicated that you intended it to be offensive (i.e. as an epithet).

I don’t know what you mean, but I am opposed to displays of bigotry from nonChristians as well as Christians.

You cannot really be in earnest with all of this?!?
Look, it was an attempt at some dry humour! Are non-believers without a sense of humour or is it just the two on this thread?
And if you read that non-believer’s appropriate posts, you can perhaps see how, through sheer exhaustion with his non-arguments, I was driven(unwisely, I know) to view the repetition of “dunno” as irritating echoes of said non-arguments.
I did not take offence at what that same non-believer labelled me just as I don’t take offense at your erroneous identification of bigotry.
But then, that’s probably another distinction believers and non-believers.
(BTW, why, as we’re on the subject of naming, do you use “Christians” and
" non-Christians "?)

 

[Abu]

Facing Reality

larkin31
Are you claiming that gay people misread the Catholic claim that homosexuality is a “grave disorder”? That it is a “sin against God”?

Shocking, you really haven’t a clue. After having been informed correctly by colmcille1 what Christ teaches through His Church – hate the sin , love the sinner, what we try to practice daily, – your obfuscation is endless.

So that your refusal to face reality is laid bare for all, the authoritative teaching from the Catechism of the Catholic Church is:

CCC #2357 teaches: …“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity [Cf Gen 19:1-29; Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10], tradition has always declared the ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’…Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

CCC #2358 teaches: …“This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”

CCC #2359 teaches: Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."

Haunted Jame
True homosexuality establishes itself earlier on, is clearly something that comes from birth and never goes away….some animals have homosexual behaviour and what is more uncorrupted and natural than animals?

Clearly, you haven’t a clue either, and seem to learn nothing from the facts.

1. Post #706:
   NOT BORN THAT WAY
   A number of researchers have sought to find a biological cause for same-sexual attraction. The media has promoted the idea that a “gay gene” has already been discovered (Burr 1996 3 ), but in spite of several attempts none of the much publicized studies (Hamer 1993 4 ; LeVay 1991 5 ) have been scientifically replicated. (Gadd 1998) A number of authors have carefully reviewed these studies and found that they not only do not prove a genetic basis for same-sex attraction, they do not even claim to have scientific evidence for such a claim. (Byne 1993 6 ; Crewdson 1995 7 ; Goldberg 1992; Horgan 1995 8 ; McGuire 1995 9 ; Porter 1996; Rice 1999 10

Post #720: In fact, this study neatly refuted several of the biological theories for the origin of homosexuality, finding social experiences in childhood to be far more significant. [Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Brückner, “Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction,” American Journal of Sociology Vol. 107, No. 5, (March 2002), 1179-1205].

If it was not clear in the 1990’s, it certainly is now—no one is “born gay.”

1. Try to face the fact that humans have intelligence and will and don’t eat their young like some animals.

“The natural law is the law of human being alone—not other animals, not birds, not rocks, not trees, not planets. The natural law arises from our particular nature. It is natural insofar as it is rooted in our nature, and moral insofar as our nature defines what is good and evil for us.

“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
No one can change the natural moral law.

 

[HauntedJame]

No one can change the natural moral law.

But we are not talking about the natural moral law, but the natural law. There’s a difference.

 

[davidv]

But we are not talking about the natural moral law, but the natural law. There’s a difference.

What is that difference?

 

[Abu]

Prominent Lutheran Pastor: Yes, I Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction

Includes Pastor Brock’s attendance at a local chapter of Courage, a Catholic-run, prayer-based support group for men struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions.

"…it was people talking about where their lives are at this week, and their stresses, and that can sometimes be related to this struggle. But it was a confidentiality group, and across the country there are these Catholic groups called Courage, and there is also Exodus International. There are all kinds of groups for Evangelical Protestants and Catholics around the country.
“…a guy from my Catholic support group called me, and he said, “The one thing that the homosexual community never hears from a conservative Christian is, ‘I have this struggle, you can have this struggle, say ‘no’ to it and still follow Jesus.” He thought that I would have now even more credibility to speak to that issue, that it would be kind of a new message now to come out of this.”
[lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10080613.html]](http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10080613.html])

 

[inocente]

*Two extensive studies appearing in the Oct 1999 issue of the American Medical Association’s Archives of General Psychiatry confirmed a strong link between homosexual sex and suicide as well as a relationship between homosexuality and abnormal mental problems. [EWTN News Brief NEW YORK, Oct 19]. *

Given the level of prejudice against homosexuals in the US in the nineties, that sounds reasonable and sad.

I don’t have any statistics handy for this, but I believe the percent of homosexuals who are atheists is much higher than the percent of heteros. The common sense factor here is that with no God or Christian tradition to interfere, it is much easier to persuade oneself that homosexuality is no less natural than heterosexuality.

If you mean that the tradition of most churches, including my own, drives many homosexuals away from Christ then I agree.

I still can’t get a straight answer from any of posters as to why, if you can get all the sex from a woman that you can get from a man, why would a man prefer to get it from another man? It would seem that the only substantive difference sexually would be that each man could perform oral sex on the other man (same for women). Is that the critical difference, that one needs to give oral sex for the penis as well as receive it?

We evolved with the capacity for differing sexual orientations. That much is obvious even though the reason is not yet known. It seems that there is a spectrum of sexual orientations, and women are more likely to be bisexual than men, and again no one yet knows why. I’m not gay and so can’t answer the last question.

But I really don’t think the sexual part is the major difference. I think it is that homosexual men are afraid of women, and homosexual women are afraid of men (except in each case for those who are bi-sexual). The pathology then concerns why there is this fear (or disgust) of having sex with the opposite sex.

My wife gets her hair cut by a married gay couple who run a ladies hairdressers. They must be a very courageous pair of dudes to choose that career if they are frightened of women.

I have a disgust of having sex with a man, is that also pathological?

Comments?

Given the length of this thread, and that other threads have not done any better, my conclusion is that natural law fails to provide anything like a rational argument on this topic. That’s not a comment on any moral issue, but to say that as a piece of logic it has more holes than you can shake a stick at, and as a philosophical argument it is a circular and redundant smoke-screen.

 

[inocente]

I don’t get all hot and bothered over Jennifer Lopez or any woman, whilst someone like George Clooney can make me weak at the knees.

Cameron Díaz. Cameron Díaz. Sorry, what were we talking about?

 

[colmcille1]

Given the level of prejudice against homosexuals in the US in the nineties, that sounds reasonable and sad.
Oh, so you take the the hackneyed route of “blame it on society”? Ever heard of personal morality? Obviously not. And please read the post by Abu wherein are detailed very specifically CC teaching on how homosexuals are to be given equal respect.

If you mean that the tradition of most churches, including my own, drives many homosexuals away from Christ then I agree.
Not true. Away perhaps from erroneous teaching of His Word, but NOT from Christ.

We evolved with the capacity for differing sexual orientations. That much is obvious even though the reason is not yet known. It seems that there is a spectrum of sexual orientations, and women are more likely to be bisexual than men, and again no one yet knows why. I’m not gay and so can’t answer the last question.
You clearly have not read the posts.

My wife gets her hair cut by a married gay couple who run a ladies hairdressers. They must be a very courageous pair of dudes to choose that career if they are frightened of women.
Anecdotes don’t cut it. They only limit your field of insight.
I have a disgust of having sex with a man, is that also pathological?
No, that would be an aspect of being heterosexual. A full-on aspect, granted, on your part, but an aspec nonetheless.

Given the length of this thread, and that other threads have not done any better, my conclusion is that natural law fails to provide anything like a rational argument on this topic. That’s not a comment on any moral issue, but to say that as a piece of logic it has more holes than you can shake a stick at, and as a philosophical argument it is a circular and redundant smoke-screen.

You’re entitled to your opinion. True Catholics, however, require and find far more than opinion.
And yourt flippant comment in the last post you entered says it all in terms of how seriously you treat the issue.

 

[Abu]

inocente
If you mean that the tradition of most churches, including my own, drives many homosexuals away from Christ then I agree.

How strange that a self-described Baptist claims that “the tradition of most churches, including my own, drives many homosexuals away from Christ.” Such a brazen rejection of Christ would be typical in one who is not really following the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Sinners drive themselves away from Christ by self-will, selfism, but when they know the truth it will set them free. (Jn 8:32).

That feeling would seem to be why there are some 42,000 ecclesial communities with differing views on Christ’s teaching.

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 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 the 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).

So those who would mislead the possessors of the homosexual disorder by denying Christ and His teaching and would deny that teaching through St Paul, have incriminated themselves as encouraging the wrong they don’t want to accept as wrong.

 

[HauntedJame]

Cameron Díaz. Cameron Díaz. Sorry, what were we talking about?

Err…no idea! I was still on George Clooney!

 

[HauntedJame]

What is that difference?

Well, if you think about it, morality is a human trait, and attribute developed. A lion has no concept of morality. So a natural moral law would a) be applied to humans alone and b) is irrelevant to this thread.

Natural law, however, is according to nature. Survival of the fittest and things like that. So if we go by that, then perhaps homosexuality in different species is a way of reducing overpopulation? Just a thought though, nothing else.

But yeah. There’s a difference.

 

[HauntedJame]

Given the level of prejudice against homosexuals in the US in the nineties, that sounds reasonable and sad.

If you mean that the tradition of most churches, including my own, drives many homosexuals away from Christ then I agree.

We evolved with the capacity for differing sexual orientations. That much is obvious even though the reason is not yet known. It seems that there is a spectrum of sexual orientations, and women are more likely to be bisexual than men, and again no one yet knows why. I’m not gay and so can’t answer the last question.

My wife gets her hair cut by a married gay couple who run a ladies hairdressers. They must be a very courageous pair of dudes to choose that career if they are frightened of women.

I have a disgust of having sex with a man, is that also pathological?

Given the length of this thread, and that other threads have not done any better, my conclusion is that natural law fails to provide anything like a rational argument on this topic. That’s not a comment on any moral issue, but to say that as a piece of logic it has more holes than you can shake a stick at, and as a philosophical argument it is a circular and redundant smoke-screen.

A very good point, actually, and it is refreshing to see it on this thread!

I believe in God and Christ, but I do not belong to a church because I feel alienated from them by the teachings. It doesn’t make me any less of a Christian, because the faith is there. It just isolates me from other worshippers.

We’re not scared of women, but neither would we want to sleep with them! Some of my best friends are women…and some of my best friends are straight men that I would never imagine myself having a sexual relationship with. And I don’t know many gay men who go around sleeping around either (must be my age…hanging out with the men of my generation might be different from the 20 year olds out there)…

 

[davidv]

Well, if you think about it, morality is a human trait, and attribute developed. A lion has no concept of morality. So a natural moral law would a) be applied to humans alone and b) is irrelevant to this thread.

Natural law, however, is according to nature. Survival of the fittest and things like that. So if we go by that, then perhaps homosexuality in different species is a way of reducing overpopulation? Just a thought though, nothing else.

But yeah. There’s a difference.

Well then we are speaking different languages. With the use of the meaning above you demonstrate that you do not understand what Catholics mean by the term “natural law”.

Please consult this article for a better understanding what is meant.

 

[HauntedJame]

Well then we are speaking different languages. With the use of the meaning above you demonstrate that you do not understand what Catholics mean by the term “natural law”.

Please consult this article for a better understanding what is meant.

Ah, I see…regardless though, there is still a difference. I understad that this is your view on it, as a Catholic, but there’s a lot of non-Catholics here who see the Natural Law as something a little bit more base. Thanks for giving me the article though, I’ll have a proper read through it during the day!

 

[Leela]

How strange that a self-described Baptist claims that “the tradition of most churches, including my own, drives many homosexuals away from Christ.” Such a brazen rejection of Christ would be typical in one who is not really following the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Sinners drive themselves away from Christ by self-will, selfism, but when they know the truth it will set them free. (Jn 8:32).

That feeling would seem to be why there are some 42,000 ecclesial communities with differing views on Christ’s teaching.

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 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 the 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).

So those who would mislead the possessors of the homosexual disorder by denying Christ and His teaching and would deny that teaching through St Paul, have incriminated themselves as encouraging the wrong they don’t want to accept as wrong.

Abu, did you ever notice that while Jesus was at his most tender in dealing with those guilty of sexual sin, he reserved his scorn for the self-righteous, for those with all kinds of ideas about how other people can improve at no cost to themselves? I’d like you to give that some serious thought.

Cost-free moralizers seem to think that they are our betters simply for making condemning remarks. Goodness to them is little more than simply holding the right ideas in their heads on issues that they don’t personally face. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, asked Jesus, when you don’t notice the log in your own?

I agree with inocente. It is not a desire to be a sinner and willful selfism that drives homosexuals away from the Church. It is people like you who’s greatest concern seems to be what other people ought to be ashamed about. Well I think you ought to be ashamed of posting the above just as should anyone quoting Leviticus to demonstrate why homosexuals ought to be stoned which is no better than citing the relevant quotes in Exodus to justify selling your daughter into slavery or why you ought not be punished for beating your slaves so long as they are able to get up after a day or two.

The fact that your view on the matter has some Biblical support doesn’t disguise the fact that it is still bigotry. That is why more and more churches are more and more open to homosexuals in the membership and even clergy. They recognize that such Biblical arguments against homosexuality don’t wash anymore than the Levitical insistence that humans with physical “defects” may not approach the altar.

All,

To get back to the topic of Natural Law, is the Law of the OT prophets consistent with Natural Law? Has Natural Law changed since then since we no longer hold that eating shellfish is an abomination or prohibit using two kinds of fabric in the same garment or two types of crop in the same field? It is my understanding that Catholics don’t support stoning of such transgressors as prescribed in Leviticus. Does that mean that Leviticus is promoting a morality that contradicts Natural Law? Or are we violating Natural Law by not stoning such people or having contact with women during their menstrual uncleanliness or just handling a football made of dead pig skin? Since Jesus said that he didn’t change one iota of the Law of the prophets, all this is a bit confusing.

Best,
Leela

 

[colmcille1]

Abu, did you ever notice that while Jesus was at his most tender in dealing with those guilty of sexual sin, he reserved his scorn for the self-righteous, for those with all kinds of ideas about how other people can improve at no cost to themselves? I’d like you to give that some serious thought.

Cost-free moralizers seem to think that they are our betters simply for making condemning remarks. Goodness to them is little more than simply holding the right ideas in their heads on issues that they don’t personally face.

Research the rise of anti-Catholism.
And YOU know what’s going on in all the heads of the posters on this thread? Remarkable. Based on this statement, would you mind if I posted a list of the varied things in my head: everything from how to keep my family fed, clothed and housed right on to thoughts about the more insidious methods of moral relativismand you could advise me accordingly?

 

[antroji]

Well said, Leela. Sorry for not reading all 1,000+ posts in this thread, but if anyone else has mentioned this, I want to add my support that “natural law” to a large degree is what we make it by dint of our habituation of perception and taste. That goes for both personal and consensus “natural law.” And remember, we are a people who thought that spontaneous generation was “natural,” espoused the phlogistion theory and had the Earth at the center of a Universe comparatively microscopic to what we now gaze at and know about in many dimensions.

The OT reference of Leviticus is well taken particularly in that homosexual behavior has occurred from time immemorial, even beyond our species. Poor animals; they fell with us too? If “natural law” proves anything, it is that homosexuality is normal in a part of the population. Or are we to argue that we now live under the “un-natural law” of the “fall” which itself can be interpreted in other ways than a change in how the Universe works? By that I mean for Catholics a radically different interpretation. And isn’t our own Church somewhat in the position that the Garden story is like a parable, ie, not a litteral account?

For my part, I have to wonder, given that we are a bit more knowledgeable now than the bitty culture our Bible came from if we are not playing a game of “telephone”* with concepts from a culture whose mores applied to them for whatever reason, but which don’t distribute necessarily over time and space.

Now certainly if one is of one of the 12 possible sexual orientations on the “clock” of sex, another positing which is temperamentally unsuited to us would seem un-natural. That is only natural. But to make a "law"of that based on personal or even consensus majority of orientation is highly questionable.

Personally, even as a heterosexual individual, I think that there are such emotional revulsions among st us about differences, such as food tastes and xenophobias of different descriptions, that sexuality. being a particularly strong area of emotionalism, we want to make our way right to the exclusion of others. I say it is none of our business, that God made us all, and the we are NOT to judge God’s ways of allowing us to love one another.

*"Telephone," for those who haven't played it, is when you put a number of people in a row and whisper a message to the person at one end. The message is passed from one to the next to the other end. Then you have the hilarity of listening to what became of the message as it morphed from its original form.

If anyone has given the least consideration to the phenomenal difficulties in communicating in even our own language in the present, we can multiply that vagary by the factors of time, space, cultural differences, linguistic nuances of colloquial meaning, general world knowledge, ideological influences, gross human error and deliberate distortion, all of which we know have happened in the history of Bible translation. AFAICS, we are contending about our own preferences, not something inherent in the structure of Universe, its laws, or God's.

 

[inocente]

You’re entitled to your opinion. True Catholics, however, require and find far more than opinion.
And yourt flippant comment in the last post you entered says it all in terms of how seriously you treat the issue.

You are right, I’m crestfallen.

Given the large numbers of committed Catholics here, the tiny number of people who read any given post, and the small chance that anyone can change another’s mind, I forgot that we’re not all here because we enjoy discussing stuff, like to learn, and meet others. I also forgot that all we can do here is quote authority or, heaven forbid, argue an opinion.