Can Homosexuality Be Proved Wrong From Natural Law

[inocente]

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).

Isn’t there a sticky that says “It is never acceptable to question the sincerity of an individual’s beliefs” and another that says “It is never acceptable to assume or say you know what another person thinks or needs”? First time I’ve clicked that little read triangle icon, but then forgiveness cut in. Close though.

How strange that on a thread about natural law, in reply to someone who said it’s not a poor argument against homosexuality (that would be me), you should only use scripture in your rebuttal. Are you now debating for or against natural law?

No need to reply unless you can be civil.

 

[inocente]

Since Jesus said that he didn’t change one iota of the Law of the prophets, all this is a bit confusing.

To add to antroji’s excellent post.

Some say that there are laws designed for other times which are no longer applicable. Leviticus is commonly dated to the Bronze Age, around 3,500 years ago, so that sounds entirely reasonable.

Modern Bible scholars have made a solid case that copyists altered some texts several times in the years BC, sometimes for political purposes. I read somewhere that the Church is relaxed about that.

St Paul says that the natural law is written on our hearts, and from the context it is then a subset of the Torah.

You are right that Matt 5:17-20 is just a little confusing. The expression “the Law and the Prophets” is used in the NT to refer to what we would call the OT (I guess Jews would call it the Tanakh but am not sure). Jesus says that He came to fulfill the Law as the promised Messiah.

As a “self-described Baptist” I was taught to interpret the Bible through the Spirit and the Spirit through the Bible. Not eating shellfish, handling footballs and other such stuff is not written on my heart and I can’t find them in Christ either.

 

[inocente]

“in reply to someone who said it’s not a poor argument”

That would be without the word “not”, I think, but the dogs are now desperate for their walk so assume what you will.

 

[The_Old_Medic]

No it can not. But then again, “Natural Law” allows the strong to kill and eat the weak. It allows force to dominate. So, the real question is, do we behave like the animals that we are, or do we follow a plan that raises us above that level?

I believe that God’s law for mankind calls for not following “Natural Law”, but following the laws as given to us by God and his prophets.

 

[antroji]

Yes; this: “* “Natural Law” allows the strong to kill and eat the weak. It allows force to dominate.*” includes even the world of finance where it could be said–paraphrasing Medic-- many are following the laws as given to us by God (Mammon) and his profits.

 

[colmcille1]

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.

Re: the post you refer to.Because of a technical error on my part, I included my points in your qoutes box.

Help me out here. I’m a simple fellow. There is a tone employed here, right?
If so, all I can say is: the world is well stocked with barstools and on them sit the purveyors of opinions, feelings, reaction and whtever you’re having yourself…The “admission price” to these said barstools is a headful of opinions. I fail it evey time as I have other funny kinda things like faith, knowledge, belief knocking around upstairs. So I trek on home and find an excellent website and I am blown away by the beauty of mankind.

If not, I profusely apologise. After all, contrary to some inferences expressed here and on other threads, we Catholics are as broken as the next man. Only thing is, we know there’s more to our search than barstools.

 

[inocente]

Sorry, I never noticed your comments inside the quote.

Oh, so you take the hackneyed route of “blame it on society”? Ever heard of personal morality? Obviously not.

Now, now you asked for comments and I gave some. The AMA, if I remember right, does not classify homosexuality as a disorder. Scientifically, any statistical results about homosexuals in a society that does not treat them equally are bound to show the bias of that society.

Not true. Away perhaps from erroneous teaching of His Word, but NOT from Christ.

Here in Spain, churches are becoming places for marriages and funerals only. The overwhelming majority of people would tick the box saying Catholic, take part in traditional events, and yet they don’t go to church, instead they buy condoms (large displays in supermarkets) and so on. Friends tell me it is because of what they see as unwarranted interference by the Church in their lives, and they are obviously losing their faith as a result. Homosexuals are even more likely to desert. As a Christian, it’s sad.

Anecdotes don’t cut it. They only limit your field of insight.

Did I give an anecdote or empirical evidence? Were you giving an opinion when you said “I think it is that homosexual men are afraid of women, and homosexual women are afraid of men”?

If not, I profusely apologise.

I also apologize for getting up your nose.

I think about my posts as much as you do, and also strongly dislike pontification. If it came over that way then sorry. We may have different views but there’s no reason why we can’t be good friends.

Really, though, don’t you think this thread proves that even some Catholics find it hard to be convinced?

 

[colmcille1]

Sorry, I never noticed your comments inside the quote.

Now, now you asked for comments and I gave some. The AMA, if I remember right, does not classify homosexuality as a disorder. Scientifically, any statistical results about homosexuals in a society that does not treat them equally are bound to show the bias of that society.

Here in Spain, churches are becoming places for marriages and funerals only. The overwhelming majority of people would tick the box saying Catholic, take part in traditional events, and yet they don’t go to church, instead they buy condoms (large displays in supermarkets) and so on. Friends tell me it is because of what they see as unwarranted interference by the Church in their lives, and they are obviously losing their faith as a result. Homosexuals are even more likely to desert. As a Christian, it’s sad.

Did I give an anecdote or empirical evidence? Were you giving an opinion when you said “I think it is that homosexual men are afraid of women, and homosexual women are afraid of men”?
No, that wasn’t me who said that.

I also apologize for getting up your nose.

I think about my posts as much as you do, and also strongly dislike pontification. If it came over that way then sorry. We may have different views but there’s no reason why we can’t be good friends.

Really, though, don’t you think this thread proves that even some Catholics find it hard to be convinced?

Thanks for your post and your gracious apology but you didn’t get up my nose anyway, so no harm done.
Yes, I’m all for friendship. We are all of us broken and seeking and its a pleasure conversing with you.
God Bless you.

 

[edwest2]

Sorry, I never noticed your comments inside the quote.

Now, now you asked for comments and I gave some. The AMA, if I remember right, does not classify homosexuality as a disorder. Scientifically, any statistical results about homosexuals in a society that does not treat them equally are bound to show the bias of that society.

Here in Spain, churches are becoming places for marriages and funerals only. The overwhelming majority of people would tick the box saying Catholic, take part in traditional events, and yet they don’t go to church, instead they buy condoms (large displays in supermarkets) and so on. Friends tell me it is because of what they see as unwarranted interference by the Church in their lives, and they are obviously losing their faith as a result. Homosexuals are even more likely to desert. As a Christian, it’s sad.

Did I give an anecdote or empirical evidence? Were you giving an opinion when you said “I think it is that homosexual men are afraid of women, and homosexual women are afraid of men”?

I also apologize for getting up your nose.

I think about my posts as much as you do, and also strongly dislike pontification. If it came over that way then sorry. We may have different views but there’s no reason why we can’t be good friends.

Really, though, don’t you think this thread proves that even some Catholics find it hard to be convinced?

The AMA was subverted by gay activists. Politics, not science, won the day.

“In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of diagnostic disorders. In retrospect, this decision appears to have been inspired by political pressure rather than medical evidence.”

God bless,
Ed

 

[antroji]

Hi EdWest2,

Would you please reference that quote? Thanks. It is always good to consider the source.

 

[edwest2]

Sure:

catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp

Scroll down about halfway to the heading:

Part IV: Homosexual “Marriage”

Then go to the second bolded line about scientific evidence.

God bless,
Ed

 

[antroji]

Danke y spaceba

 

[Justin1982]

Sure:

catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp

Scroll down about halfway to the heading:

Part IV: Homosexual “Marriage”

Then go to the second bolded line about scientific evidence.

God bless,
Ed

Very interesting read, also consider the government that pushes for a more health conscience America at the same time pushing for gay marriage. Seems very hypocritical to be the enabler for homosexual unions which by those findings says the average age of the homosexual male is 38 who is highly prone to STDs, more forms of cancer and 14 times more suicidal. Thanks liberal America.

 

[HauntedJame]

Very interesting read, also consider the government that pushes for a more health conscience America at the same time pushing for gay marriage. Seems very hypocritical to be the enabler for homosexual unions which by those findings says the average age of the homosexual male is 38 who is highly prone to STDs, more forms of cancer and 14 times more suicidal. Thanks liberal America.

Actually, we’re not more prone to STDs. Don’t forget that more and more teenage heterosexuals are being diagnosed with STDs. It’s a universal thing. It was the gay culture pre-AIDS that accounted for the higher STD rates among homosexuals. Nowadays, the majority of us always use protection. As for the cancer, I can’t really see why, but fair enough. At least the prosentage of homosexuals who are obese is lower. And to mention the suicidal bit; not surprised, considered the prejudice still out there. It’s tough enough being a teenager without adding being gay!

 

[Abu]

Leela
The fact that your view on the matter has some Biblical support doesn’t disguise the fact that it is still bigotry. Biblical arguments against homosexuality don’t wash anymore.

As we’ve seen ad nauseam, the selfists have nothing on which to base what they feel is “thought” but self-serving feeling which feels that anything contrary is bigotry – a tragic example of why the world is in such a mess today.
The Sacred Scriptures authoritatively affirmed by Christ’s Church mean nothing except when twisted to suit selfism.
The natural moral law acknowledged by pagans before Christ, affirmed in the Sacred Scriptures, and affirmed by Christ’s Church mean nothing.

Skin Colour * is genuinely accidental
Gender * this is not genuinely accidental
Sexual Orientation * not genuinely accidental because this orientation is a disorder, for God created male and female for each other.
The apparently deliberate propensity to the bigotry prejudice identifies the perpetrators as irrational and making their own trouble.

antroji
“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.”

That is precisely why the world is in the mess of today – wallowing in perception and taste, and this from a self-styled “Catholic”. This prejudice is identical to self-serving feeling, and very appropriate to fools rush in where angels fear to tread – as the poster knows nothing about the natural moral law. Don’t you know that 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”?

There is ample evidence of the fact of the natural moral law, and the fact that pagans, Ancient Egyptians, Roman philosopher Cicero (died 43 B.C.), Roman jurists, Sodom and Gomorrah, attest to it, and to the fact that it must be followed or the consequences must be paid, plus the simple steps that show the immorality of sodomy, the disorder of the homosexual, and the success of reparative therapy programs that enable many so afflicted to lead a normal life.

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.

 

[antroji]

Through history there have been 12 classic gender orientations associated with the two physical distinctions, excluding those pesky hermaphrodites who really are far more prevalent than we would like, (Antroji says that tongue in cheek, mildly mocking the exclusion of those from this debate.) Your claim that sexual orientation is “not genuinely accidental because this orientation is a disorder, for God created male and female for each other.” is kind of belied by the hermis, Abu.

God made EVERYTHING, and in every way. Including the people you are attempting to make into perverts because you personally don’t care, by habituation, for their mind set. So I would say that “The apparently deliberate propensity to the bigotry prejudice identifies the perpetrators as irrational and making their own trouble” identifies you, eh? It doesn’t say in the Bible that there are gradations of everything between the polar opposites. Maybe God mistakenly thought that we had usable powers of perception and reason in this matter? But no, if we don’t like something, we will use even God to sanction our prejudice.

I like this about that: “On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism. ~Barry Goldwater”

You live in a real world with real people, Abu. Get over yourself. The 3000 year old standards of some obscure dessert tribe that happened to be the root of three major religions may not exactly apply to our world right now. You are big enough of heart to be entrusted with the dictum to Love your neighbor as yourself. You must therefore know yourself as well, not just live by beliefs someone put in your head, as valuable as those might be. They are weight around your neck unless you earn their meaning. And in any religion’s inner core is the knowledge that God is Love, and that all else is commentary. Some of that commentary in the form of handed down for millenia mores might not be so accurate, eh?

 

[Abu]

antroji
God made EVERYTHING, and in every way. Including the people you are attempting to make into perverts. 3000 year old standards of some obscure dessert tribe that happened to be the root of three major religions may not exactly apply to our world right now. God is Love, and that all else is commentary. Some of that commentary in the form of handed down for millenia mores might not be so accurate, eh?

Face Reality
A classic example of fantasy – it is Jesus the Christ and the Catholic St Paul who identify those who are perverts. We who follow Christ’s teaching hate to see you pervert it. The homosexual person is called to chastity identically to the normal person. Perhaps you are unaware that St Paul taught in the first century. And, how fatuous to quote another selfist (politician) who couldn’t care less about the Christ and His truth – just as you have ditched His Church.

Face the reality of Christ: “I am the Way the Truth and the Life.” Perhaps you are also unaware that Christ commanded “If you love Me keep My commandments.” (Jn 14:15). We Catholics hate to see love used as an excuse to jettison His other Commandments, which include the sins which Christ described as defiling (in Mk 7:21).

The acknowledgment of the reality of the natural moral law simply extends from long before Christ to the affirmation by His chosen St Paul. No mere mortal can change that.

 

[antroji]

Yes, Abu, I agree with you. It is good to face reality. And I agree with Gandhi, who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I know Mk 7:21 and have read Paul, both the ones he wrote and the ones attributed to him. I don’t get from any of that what you seem to.

And I am sorry, but where do you get that I ditched His Church?

 

[Abu]

antroji
I agree with Gandhi, who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I know Mk 7:21 and have read Paul, both the ones he wrote and the ones attributed to him. I don’t get from any of that what you seem to….where do you get that I ditched His Church?

Those who know but don’t assent to or follow Christ’s teaching are not Christlike.
We have what St Paul wrote, “attributions” are spurious. Unless you assent to the teaching of Christ’s Church you have ditched Her. There is no room for dissent.
Try taking off the blinkers and absorbing truth.

HOMOSEXUALITY
Question from on 11-14-2002:
Answer by Fr. John Echert on Nov-15-2002 (EWTN):
[Extracts]
"The New Testament, consistent with the Old Testament, regards homosexual activity as a perversion and as spiritually life-threatening. In particular, St. Paul condemns in the strongest terms the behavior of pagans who failed to recognize the one true God and lapsed into sexual perversity, as we read in Romans:
“1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 1:27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

“Furthermore, the Apostle lists among those who will not enter the Kingdom of God those who are actively homosexual:

“6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, 6:10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1Cor)

“Actually there are two words in the Greek behind the single RSV word “sexual perverts”, both of which regard homosexuality. The Greek language was able to distinguish between the passive partner of a homosexual union (acting as the female) and the active partner of that union, both of which are found in this text and stand behind the single designation, “sexual perverts” of the RSV.

“Further examples of condemnation for fornication, which would certainly include any homosexual activity in the thinking of St. Paul and an authentic Christian or Jew can be found in other letters:

“5:19 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, 5:21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (note: fornication includes any form of homosexual activity) (Gal)

“5:5 Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 5:6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (Eph)

“While still loving the individual, we must not succumb to secular godless thinking which accepts homosexual activity as acceptable.”
ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=297811&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2002&Author=&Keyword=malice&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=2&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

 

[MichaelR]

Yes, Abu, I agree with you. It is good to face reality. And I agree with Gandhi, who said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I know Mk 7:21 and have read Paul, both the ones he wrote and the ones attributed to him. I don’t get from any of that what you seem to.

And I am sorry, but where do you get that I ditched His Church?

:clapping:

It’s not right to tar all Catholics/Christians with the same brush, but it’s sad that a lot of those I have met and spoken to use snippets of the bible, taken out of context and often used in an incorrect context to support their own personal prejudices…and the worst thing is, they don’t recognise it, they hide behind it being a religious belief instead of having the guts to just stand up and say ‘I don’t like it’. At least atheist homophobes just admit that it’s because they plain don’t like it instead of hiding behind something else.